


Constellations of You

by makeshiftcandy



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Eventual Smut, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Implied Poe Dameron/Finn, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Slow Burn, Slow Burn Rey/Kylo Ren, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-03-30 12:12:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 39
Words: 181,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13951308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makeshiftcandy/pseuds/makeshiftcandy
Summary: Four months following the Battle of Crait, Rey has closed off her side of the Force bond between her and Kylo Ren, but not without consequences.  He's taken on the title of Supreme Leader of the First Order, putting an insurmountable bounty on her head for the murder of the former Supreme Leader.  Leia has grounded Rey, keeping her confined to the new Resistance base on Barkhesh.  Despite her protests, Rey falls into a boring routine, until she's given a Force vision urging her that the answers she seeks are on Tatooine.She follows her intuition, running to Tatooine; running inexplicably to Kylo Ren.





	1. in which two space nerds try and think about anything besides each other

The stars truly were beautiful here.

Unobstructed by clouds, they twinkled in the distance like fireflies – a species unfamiliar to Rey before arriving on this planet. Poe had been so excited, talking about catching them in glass jars as a boy back on his home planet, and he attempted to get Rey involved in his relived childhood antics. But she preferred to watch them live freely.

Lying back in the grass, Rey stared up at those stars. It was quiet this time of night – most of the Resistance base shut down during the night, only a few selected to run safety rounds. It was easy for Rey to slip out under the cover of darkness, find her spot on the cliff side, and watch the stars.

She slept much less than she should these days, the act itself not coming as naturally as it once did. At times like those, it relaxed her to pretend.

If she closed her eyes, the grass beneath her began to feel softer, worn and overgrown from excessive rain. The sandy beaches so many yards beneath her feet faded away to jagged rocks. The stars disappeared, hidden by those low-hanging clouds she’d come to know. The Resistance base behind her, buried mostly underground, became a small colony of brick huts staggered across the cliff.

If she closed her eyes, she could see Master Skywalker, with his perpetually unwelcome gaze, staring at her beneath brooding eyes and seeing the potential that he feared and awed, all at once.

Sometimes, it was easier to pretend she was still on Ahch-To. For some reason, everything felt so much simpler back then. Though her entire perspective of life had shifted, and though she’d not been there more than a week, that secluded planet so far away from everything else felt oddly like a home to her. More home than her destroyed AT-AT back on Jakku, more home than this abandoned Resistance base Leia had brought them too.

More home, even, then the Millennium Falcon did at times.

But the illusion always faded. Sometimes it took a few minutes, other times she’d be lost in her imagination for hours. But she inevitably was brought back to Barkhesh, a planet beautiful in its own right, but not in the ways that she wanted it to be.

It was a mountainous planet, and the base they’d found was on one of the larger islands that took up the planet’s surface. It’d been home to a rebellion outpost that had been abandoned after the battle of Yavin 4, nearly thirty years prior, and Leia thought it’d be the perfect hiding spot to begin their rebuild of the Resistance. No one would assume, after the disastrous battle on Crait, that the Resistance would seek shelter in another abandoned rebel station, right?

So far, the General’s assumptions had proven correct – they’d been living freely for quite some time, utilizing lost resources here, making trips to various outposts in the Outer Rim and scavenging for parts to repair the outdated X-Wings. Rey had utilized skills learned over her years on Jakku to help them steal junk ships, and she and Poe had gone to work restoring them, however painstaking the process might be.

Most of the ships were in junkyards – the types of freighters and transports they didn’t expect anyone to miss. But none of them would stand a chance in a warzone.

That was before Rey had been grounded, though.

Sighing, she opened her eyes, once more faced with the vast number of stars above her. She’d visited so few of them, the adventurous ache within her had been silenced by Leia’s extraordinarily strict orders. Not even Poe had attempted once to go against Leia’s wishes – after being stunned by the General herself on the Raddus, though, Rey couldn’t say she blamed him. Leia was surely a force to be reckoned with.

The headache Rey had been dealing with for the past few months surged to the forefront of her mind when she thought about the Raddus, and she sat up at the suddenness of it, burying her face in her hands and willing the pain to recede. It was a constant thing now, but the pain came and went during the day. Typically it made itself as known as possible during the nights, when she had an inordinate amount of time to think.

Her mind always drifted back to that day, when the Raddus was shot down and she’d left Ahch-To, cutting her time with Luke shorter than he’d wanted her to; despite asking her repeatedly to leave, she felt his drive to keep her there, to teach her the ways she needed to be taught.

Her heart had other plans.

No one knew what she’d done on the Supremacy. Leia had intercepted a First Order transmit from their new base ship about a month after they’d made ground here, on Barkhesh. The Order had put an insurmountable bounty on Rey’s head for the murder of their Supreme Leader, and everyone genuinely accepted that to be the truth. Though they couldn’t have been more wrong.

It was at that same time that Leia informed Rey – as well as the rest of the Resistance – of who’d taken the place of Snoke as Supreme Leader.

Leia had grounded Rey then, knowing half of the galaxy probably knew what she looked like, despite Rey’s many and consistent protests. The General was convinced she’d be able to hack the First Order mainframe and take the bounty down, so long as they could get remote access to the computers.

For which they needed about thirty pieces of technology inaccessible to them, lest they rob someone far richer than the junk traders and smugglers they’d been focused on, and a First Order Star Destroyer.

Chewbacca had been working on the Falcon practically since they’d landed, trading out the internal tracking system with an older model freighter and switching out some of the communication pieces – anything to make the ship less familiar to the various computer systems throughout the galaxy. As soon as he’d finished, Rey had practically begged to be on the next mission – gathering resources on a nearby planet. They wouldn’t even leave the system. Rey thought it’d be harmless, and she’d been going stir-crazy, locked on this planet.

“I won’t be seen,” Rey argued.

“I said no,” Leia retorted.

“The ship’s defenses are higher than they’ve ever been!” Rey had to keep herself from shouting. “I’ll wear a mask, I’ll have Chewie with me—“

“No, Rey!” Leia did shout, unafraid to remind her who the officer in the room was.

“Why not?” She knew she sounded like a petulant child, but she didn’t see the argument in the clarity the General seemed to.

“Because I…” She looked at Rey, and there was an unmistakable agony in her eyes. “I can’t risk losing someone else this time.”

Rey had shut up about the issue after that, accepting and refining herself to all of the ground work she could to keep her busy.

Her mornings were spent with her arms elbow-deep in X-Wing engines, fine-tuning the dated machines to be up to code, or at the very least not fall apart as soon as they were in the air. Her afternoons she spent sitting in her quarters, pouring over the Jedi texts she’d gotten from the Uneti tree on Ahch-To or attempting – and failing miserably – at putting her lightsaber back together after the “unfortunate accident” that had led to it being split in two. Sometimes she sat in on meetings with the fleet, listening to them updating the officers on where they’d been and what they’d accomplished in the Outer Rim, though she’d been doing this less and less since her conversation with Leia. Her evenings were spent training herself in one of the empty hangars of the base with her quarterstaff, feeling the need to be doing something more physical after spending her years with so little free time.

And her nights were spent out here, beneath the stars she didn’t know, finding constellations she didn’t recognize in the sky and wondering what planets orbited those systems. Wondering if she’d ever get to see them for herself, or if she’d spend the rest of her days imprisoned on this planet.

Rey knew this was ridiculous – of course she wasn’t a prisoner. She felt ashamed of her self-pity, but it was hard, watching those around her that she cared about being able to go do all these wonderful things in an attempt to rebuild the Resistance, while she could do nothing but sit back and be useless.

She knew it wasn’t forever, but these months passing by felt like an eternity in their own right.

She wished, not for the first time, that Master Luke were still alive. She wanted his perspective on her plight, wanted his wisdom. And, blast it all, she wanted someone to tell her how to fix her kriffing lightsaber.

Groaning in frustration, the headache receded once more to a dull ache in her temples, Rey lay back again, her eyes closed to the stars. Sometimes, if she concentrated, she could feel her Master’s Force signature out in that intricate web that stretched before her mind. It taunted her, just on the edge of her perception, where she couldn’t quite reach it.

She knew she was going crazy every time she felt him. Though she was all too familiar with her own ghosts, actual ghosts didn’t exist. If they did, she’d have been haunted ten-fold by a dozen or so junk traders she’d unintentionally gotten killed by Unkar Plutt and his thugs.

The Force stretched before her, laying the ground work for all things life and death. She could feel it, wrapping around her like a blanket, securing her to the present – where she was on Barkhesh, but in these moments, that was easier to accept. She could feel the life and death, the warmth and the cold, thrumming beneath her fingertips and within her.

Like the ghost of a memory, that all-too-familiar tug in the back of her mind made itself known.

Rey’s eyes snapped open, checking quickly to make sure her walls were still firmly locked in place – the way they’d been when she’d shut the door to the Falcon on Crait, as impenetrable as the blast doors to that base if they were up against a TIE fighter.

The headache increased in tempo, each beat of her heart exacerbating the pain until it drummed all over her head. She clenched her fists, her nails digging into her palms, in an attempt to draw any attention away from her brain. It was no use – the headache had made itself known, and it would be there to stay.

Sighing, Rey stood, keeping her eyes low as she made her way back into the base. Whenever this happened, the only thing that helped was sleep, however much or little she could get.

\---------------------

Kylo Ren skimmed quietly through the holo-tablet, every passing minute becoming more and more uncomfortable for the First Order weapons supplier that had come to present his plans directly to the Supreme Leader. Apparently, this was not a common thing to do, but General Hux had insisted that this course of action would be better served to Ren if he were to view it himself.

The silence stretched uncomfortably long, and Ren let the tension in the room build before he glanced up, making eye contact with the weapon’s dealer. The dealer quickly looked away, suddenly finding his feet much more interesting.

“General,” Ren said once he’d finished his overview. He was exceptionally thorough, never one to bear the thought of an investment going south because he’d not reviewed the numbers well enough. Hux was by his side in an instant, a deplorable excitement in his eyes. “You’ve presented to me nothing more here than another Starkiller.”

“Yes, Supreme Leader, I thought it might pique your interests to begin the construction on a new weapon—“

“Another Starkiller,” Ren corrected.

“This one is exceptionally fortified, sir, without the—“

“You’re being naïve,” Ren said, waving his hand. Hux stopped, mid-sentence, and that familiar hatred took over his eyes once more.

“If you’ll forgive me, Ren—“

“Do you truly believe,” Ren interrupted, noting that Hux had once again failed to state his title – it was an act of defiance, he knew, but Hux was convenient to keep around. Despite the fact that he no doubt had at least thirty plans of assassination written somewhere within his quarters, he was smart and tactical, and far too scared to ever act on his impulses. The wile man was a coward, through and through. “That pouring a ridiculous amount of credits into this project is a good idea? First the Death Star, then Starkiller – I’m seeing a pattern, General, and I’m concerned you’re not seeing the same pattern.”

“No, truly, this—“

“We will not,” Ren said, standing up, using the full force of his intensity to make Hux shrink back, “put ourselves in a position to have wasted countless hours and credits in a machine that will only get blown up by some lucky pilot in an X-Wing.” He glanced at the weapons dealer, who seemed to be shaking. “Were you commissioned to do this?”

“Yes, sir, Supreme Leader,” the man trembled. Ren could not for the life of him remember this man’s name.

“I’ll see to it that you get compensated for your time,” Ren said, gesturing toward the door. The man bowed deeply, then practically ran for the exit.

Kylo Ren had become synonymous with fear.

“You’re joking, right?” Hux said once the man was out of ear shot, not fearing the repercussions of speaking out against the Supreme Leader as much when there weren’t witnesses. “There is a dealer willing to build another Starkiller, Ren, surely you see the benefits of—“

“I do not,” Ren responded, turning his back on his General. The headache was coming around once more, and he knew he’d kill Hux for his insubordination if he were in the same room when the pain rippled to the forefront of his mind. “We destroyed the Republic, General. The entire system of opposition Snoke had so gloriously declared war on was ended. We have no reason for such a weapon anymore – we are the only government.”

“What about the Resistance?” Hux practically shouted, and Ren turned.

“Would you waste so many credits on a depleted force?” he countered. “Their numbers are dwindled to almost nothing, their sympathizers have turned their backs. And we’ve no idea where they’re hiding – do you intend on firing into random systems in hopes that theirs is one of them?” Word had spread through the galaxy about Leia’s lost distress signal – truly they had no one but themselves. “The Resistance has been reduced to a rag-tag team of misfits with numbers in the low forties.”

“But the girl is most likely among them,” Hux hissed, and Ren’s hand flew up of his own accord, cutting the General’s airways in a swift motion. Hux’s eyes went wide, futilely grasping his throat for reprieve from the lack of oxygen.

“The girl is my responsibility,” Ren retorted after a moment, dropping Hux, who landed on his knees and gasped for breath. He knew, of course, that Hux had put a bounty on the scavenger’s head – they would be expected to, after word got out that she’d been the one to kill Snoke.

Ren felt that she was his responsibility – he’d allowed her to escape, which had been an unfortunate turn of events. It was his responsibility to rectify that.

Darkness rises, and the light to meet it, Snoke had said to them. It was all Ren could do to snuff out the light.

xxx

Alone in his chambers, Ren shrugged off his cloak and sat on his bed, cradling his head in his hands as the ache pulsed through his temples. They’d been getting progressively worse as time passed, always coming harsher as the day wore on.

Absently, he reached out, poking the bond in the back of his mind he’d yet to dispel. No matter how much research he did, there seemed to be no feasible way to break a bond like this – especially since there was no information about a bond like this. As usual, he was met with the glaring cold of the scavenger’s closed half, which only perpetuated the headache.

Ren sighed, using the Force to dim the lights of his quarters as the headache worsened. Closing his eyes, the pain blossomed, blooming like stars behind his lids. He could, at times, will it away when he had other distractions before him, but the ship was quiet, the day’s work winding down. He’d been up nearly thirty hours, sleep not coming as easily as it had prior to the disastrous mission to Crait.

When the headaches began.

After the scavenger closed the door on him, both literally and figuratively.

Lying back, Ren forced his mind not to drift to the scavenger, as it had a habit of doing once he finally had time alone. Instead, he thought of the meeting he’d attended the day prior, a strategic planning of the assimilation of a number of systems over the next two months.

He’d discussed their losses from the battle above Crait with Hux a few days prior, learning that the million or so soldiers they’d lost at Starkiller and aboard their Supremacy fleet were being rapidly rebuilt.

“I have a number of Stormtrooper classes ready for graduation,” Hux had said, and Ren clenched his fists at the terminology Hux used. He couldn’t remember when he’d started despising the General describing the systematic brainwashing of children as “schooling”, but it irked him. Then again, most everything that came out of General Hux’s mouth irked him. “We’re also working on building class armies in each system, of the citizens belonging there, to build commitment to the First Order.”

Ren had to admit, Hux’s implementation of voluntary soldiers was working splendidly; the devotion to the First Order had never been higher. Ren had approved a salary for his soldiers that had ranks lining up to join them.

His thoughts took similar routes for a few hours, until Ren realized that sleep would not come quite so easily. Despite his exhaustion, the nights stretched endlessly, his eyes refusing to close until he was near collapsing.

He could spend the rest of the evening training, but his muscles were already overworked from this morning’s workout. And he didn’t want to be caught wandering the halls of the ship, lest someone go out of their way to try and speak to him – he was never one for casual conversation, and he knew his soldiers felt obligated to acknowledge him when he passed now that he was Supreme Leader.

Instead, he made his way over to the holo-projector he had installed in his quarters, tapping a few keys and typing in his numeric password. These were his files; no one else in the Order had access to his private archives.

Ren pulled up the archives of the Empire, searching through documentation about his grandfather once more. He’d scoured every paragraph, every sentence of anything mentioning either Anakin Skywalker or Darth Vader, searching for links, for any passages he might have missed. As always, the story was the same – Darth Vader, seemingly coming out of nowhere just to be the apprentice of Darth Sidious. Becoming the Second-in-Command of the Emperor, hunting down any and all rebel outposts, being the only survivor of the Death Star explosion headed by Luke Skywalker. Much of the information was droll – Vader didn’t seem to lead a terribly exciting life, though based on his own knowledge of being an apprentice to a user of the Dark Side, it was possible Vader kept secrets from even Palpatine.

There was no actual bridge between Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader – by record, they were two completely different people.

Ren wanted that story. The story of how the great Jedi Knight became an even greater Sith Lord. He wanted to know the trials and tribulations that Anakin went through to become indoctrinated into the Sith.

He knew most of that information was lost. Luke told the legend of Darth Vader turning to the light to save his life, but that was the only story Luke knew, the only part he was there for. Anyone else who might have an inkling of an idea was long dead, either by the hand of Vader himself or by the cruel hand of time.

His head suddenly throbbed, and the lights of the projector were much too bright all at once. Ren ran a frustrated hand through his hair and clicked the archives off, taking a deep breath as his chambers were once more shrouded in darkness.

He rubbed two fingers against his temple, resting his cheek against his palm and feeling the ragged scar that ran up the length of his face. All at once, she came back to his memory, without so much as a warning.

She was an enigma, that scavenger from Jakku. Ren would be lying if he said he’d never looked into the battle that took place in the planet’s deserts after meeting the girl – it had happened just after the initial fall of the Empire, and nothing about it seemed too terribly interesting. Happening long before her birth, the effects were still prominent. He knew from his trip through her mind that she lived in an abandoned AT-AT, that she’d scavenged old Star Destroyers for food.

He’d looked into her mind, and all he saw was her loneliness.

And it was when he’d looked into her mind that this connection had happened, no matter what credit Snoke tried to take. He knew her, not in the way you’d expect to know someone. Ren hadn’t met the girl, but he’d seen her in his dreams. Aching, desperate for sleep, curled up by herself in a home she’d built. Her hands burning from spending the day scouring metal in the scorching sun, until her calluses ran so deep she couldn’t feel them anymore.

He knew her, and yet he didn’t know her at all.

All at once, he’s back in that throne room on Supremacy, reaching toward her. Though he knew there was never truly a chance she’d actually take his hand, he had hoped. It was a foolish thing to wish, but in that moment, the way she looked at him – it was like she knew him too. Knew him outside of their hands touching through the bond. Knew him outside of being Ben Solo, son of Han and Leia, nephew of the great Luke Skywalker.

And then she was reaching, and that hope had spiked.

But it was merely for Anakin’s lightsaber, which he’d forgotten at that point he’d been holding.

Groaning, the headache pounded against the inside of his skull, and Ren dashed these thoughts. Thinking about her only ever made the ache worse, near to the point of unmanageable. Lying back on his bed, he couldn’t help but wonder if she was ravaged by the same pain.

It was her fault, after all.


	2. in which one space nerd gets mad at herself for thinking too much about the other space nerd

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I listened to Mars by Sleeping At Last while writing this chapter - it reminds me of the Resistance. Have a listen if that suits your fancy.

               Rey sat, frustrated, in front of the pieces of her lightsaber.  She’d managed to take each piece apart individually – thank the stars for those years spent scavenging old machinery on Jakku.  But now, with the Kyber crystal set to the side and the pieces of metal broken down, she had no idea how to put weld them back together.

               She knew, somehow, that pulling out a torch would destroy the hilt.  And she’d failed miserably when she’d tried to bend the will of the Force to simply put the pieces together for her.  This wasn’t a puzzle, and the Force was completely unwilling to help her, it seemed.  Her books also offered little information about sabers, stating simply that it was in the best interest of a Jedi to build their own, so it fit their specifications.

               But hers had _called_ to her, willing her to use it, choosing her – she owed it the obligation to rebuild the blasted thing at least.

               There was only one other person in the galaxy who knew how to build a lightsaber, and stars knew she wasn’t about to ask _him_ for help.

               With a sigh, Rey collapsed into the small desk chair, rubbing her temples as the headache she couldn’t sleep off the night before resurfaced.  It had been so long since her mind had felt normal, she could barely remember the freedom of it.

               It had been since Crait.

               Since dark, solemn eyes looked up and watched her close herself to him.

               Since the future she was s _o certain of_ was dashed like dirt in the breeze.

               It had seemed so necessary at the time.  And in the beginning, she’d fooled herself into thinking he might actually understand her decision.

               But she was a coward – she’d been so scared of the repercussions of abandoning him that she’d completely and utterly shut herself off to him, afraid to find out what she already knew; that he hated her with the same ferocity he’d seemed to hate his uncle.  That he had nothing left for her, no sentiment, only regret for allowing her to be the reason he’d assassinated his master.

               After all, he’d sent an entire fleet of TIE fighters after her on the Falcon.

               She was nothing to him.

               _But not to me,_ his voice, spoken so softly against the rage and fire of the throne room.  After they’d danced together against the Praetorian guard.  Loud and true, ringing in her ears.

               With great effort, she banished the thoughts, finding a new pounding throb within her mind that she’d forgotten while so lost in memories.  She pulled herself back to the present; back to the pieces of lightsaber before her, and wished, not for the first time, that she could speak with its originator.

               Darth Vader.  Or, he’d been a Jedi before, hadn’t he?  When he’d built this lightsaber?  A member of the light side of the Force.  That’s why the crystal was blue.  He’d constructed this saber in his image, and she had no idea how to bring the pieces back together to fit that image once more.

               Distantly, she wondered if Leia knew.

               “If Leia knew what?” the namesake said behind her, pulling Rey out of her thoughts with a gasp.  She turned on her heel, facing amused brown eyes as they leaned against her doorway.

               “General,” Rey breathed, taking a slow breath.  “I didn’t hear you come in.”  She hadn’t realized she was speaking aloud.

               “You seemed rather lost in thought,” Leia mused, moving into the room of her own volition.  Rey had learned, after spending so many months with the General, that she did not wait for permission – Leia Organa did exactly what she intended to do at every turn.  Rey admired her greatly.  “Now, you were wondering if I knew something?”

               “Oh, yes,” Rey said, suddenly embarrassed.  Leia sat on the edge of Rey’s bed – a luxury in itself – and put both hands over the small cane she now used to walk.  Rey cleared her throat.  “Yes, well, I was actually wondering…”  She glanced down at the saber, willing it to give her the courage to talk.  “What do you know about your father?”

               Leia gave Rey a long look, weighing the words in her mind before she answered.  “I imagine you’re not talking about Bail Organa?”

               “I…don’t believe so,” Rey said, suddenly unsure.  She had imagined that Luke was the bearer of his father’s last name, but suddenly she was at a loss – after all, she only knew of him as Darth Vader.  Leia sighed, watching the emotions flit across Rey’s face with slight amusement.

               “Bail Organa was my adoptive father,” Leia clarified, and Rey let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.  “He was never shy about admitting his and my mother’s adoption of me, but he never gave me any indication of who my real parents were.”

               “Did you ask?” Rey asked, not wanting to sound as if she were prying but suddenly ravenous for this history lesson.  She knew so little about General Leia Organa, former Princess of Alderaan, wife and mother, outside of her various titles and personal relationships.  And that was only what she’d managed to scrape together from accidental eavesdropping in the hallways of this compound.

               “Some part of me always knew,” Leia said.  “I remember, from an impossibly young age, how my mother looked.  My real mother, that is,” Leia said with a shrug.  “She died giving birth to Luke and me, from what my father said, so that’s why I’m not sure if her face is a memory or a dream.  But if it’s a memory, she was incredibly beautiful.”  Rey smiled at that, not willing to ask any more questions and derail the conversation further.  “But my parents were wonderful parents; I had little desire to learn more outside of them.”

               She paused long enough for Rey to lean forward, willing her to continue.

               “Luke gave me the name of our real father,” Leia said after a moment.  “Anakin Skywalker.  A Jedi from Tatooine.”  Her words felt incredibly weighted, and Rey had to suck in a slow breath.  It was like the tension in the room had shifted.

               “Tatooine?”

               “A desert planet in the Outer Rim.  Not under Imperial law or Republic jurisdiction, from what I know.  Han frequented it in his smuggling days.”  Leia smiled fondly, and Rey couldn’t help but smile, as well.  “Apparently you can get relatively large orders delivered and transferred from ship to ship for cheap and without question.”

               “Sounds like Jakku,” Rey said absentmindedly, and Leia only nodded.

               “I made that connection, too,” Leia said, though Rey wasn’t sure there was a connection to be made.  It was a coincidence, that’s all.  Right?

               “And your mother?” Rey asked, trying to bring the conversation back from this uncomfortable turn.

               “I don’t know much about her,” Leia shook her head, a sad look in her eyes.  “My and Luke’s birth records were never documented – to keep our existence a secret from our father, who had already become apprentice to Darth Sidious.  Her name was Padme Amidala.  A Senator from Naboo, so her political life was well-documented, but that wasn’t who s _he_ was.”  That distant look had returned the Leia’s eyes, and Rey leaned forward once more, resting her hand atop Leia’s two.  “Artoo has some archived information stored in his processor.  A few holos, showing how Anakin interacted with her, their secret marriage; their final moments together...”  Leia trailed off, and Rey allowed her to reminisce for a moment.

               “There was almost no information about Anakin,” she continued with a laugh, “but I at least had a name for him.  I found some holos of his training sessions with younglings at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant.  Luke resembled him greatly.”  Leia’s voice hitched, and she took a deep breath.  “There was a record of his birth on Tatooine, though only his mother signed it.  Not terribly uncommon, I suppose, for such a planet.”

               “What are younglings?” Rey asked, knowing she was backtracking but curiosity got the best of her.  Leia smiled, her eyes warming.

               “That’s what Jedi trainees are referred to as before they become padawans – which are official students of the Jedi Order.  Younglings were trained in classes at the Jedi Temple, and then each youngling, when reaching an appropriate age and maturity level with the Force, was assigned a Master to teach them.”

               “Luke explained all that, did he?” Rey guessed, and Leia laughed.

               “He did.  He had done his fair share of research on Anakin, too, and was actually the one who showed me the holos.  Though Luke’s training classes with his padawans was different – after all, he was the only master.”  A moment of silence stretched between them, each of them probably remembering different aspects of a specific padawan from Luke’s Temple.

               “What else did you find out about Anakin?” Rey finally asked, dragging Leia back to the present.

               “He was trained under a Master, named Obi-Wan Kenobi.  Ben, as Luke knew him, after he followed my infant brother to Tatooine to keep an eye on him.”  Rey looked, with wide eyes, and Leia nodded.  “The namesake of my and Han’s son, and Luke’s first Jedi Master, as well.”

               “Stars,” Rey said, and Leia nodded.

               “I had originally suggested Bail, after my father, but Han was having none of that,” Leia said slyly, and Rey couldn’t help but chuckle.  “I think he felt like he’d dodged a bullet, not having to prove his worth to the father of the Princess of Alderaan, and that some part of him might feel obligated to do such to our son if he bore the same name.”

               Rey laughed aloud now.  “That’s ridiculous,” she said, unable to stop herself.  Leia laughed, too.

               “Han was ridiculous,” she countered.  “He’d thrown a traditional Kashyyyk name into the pool, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was.  I think he just didn’t have any ideas, so he asked Chewie for one.”

               “Of course,” Rey laughed, as though these antics of a young Han Solo were completely normal to her.

               “I’d suggested Anakin, as well,” Leia said after they both had their share of laughter.  “That was somehow worse than Bail in Han’s eyes.”

               “I actually quite enjoy that name,” Rey admitted, and Leia nodded.

               “It has a certain quality to it,” she commented.  “But no, Han would have no part in naming our child after Darth Vader, even though only a select few at the time even knew that was such.”  She stared at Rey’s hand atop hers for a moment, before Rey pulled back.  “I can see his insight in that case, though.

               “Luke came up just after I had him, took one look at him, and called him Ben.”  Leia shrugged absently, as if this were the most normal thing in the world.  “It just fit.”  Rey nodded, afraid of contributing to any conversation involving that specific Ben.  Silence stretched between them once more, and this time Rey didn’t interrupt Leia’s memories.

               “After Obi-Wan had trained Anakin for about ten years, he became a member of the Jedi Council,” Leia continued like they hadn’t sidetracked at all.  “There are very few records of his missions, so I’m not sure what types of accomplishments he had earned.  From what the archives of the Republic show, he was on the Council for about three standard years before he perished in the attack on the Coruscant Jedi Temple.”

               “How is that possible?” Rey asked, her eyes wide.

               Leia shrugged.  “Forged documentation dictating what Emperor Palpatine wanted the public to believe.  There’s no record at all that there’s a link between Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader.  We just know it to be true based on what Luke learned while training with his Masters, and from Vader himself.”  She made a wide gesture across the room.  “It’s just like this space.  We know it to be true because we’re immersed in it, but we could only convince someone else that that’s the case if they trusted us enough to take our word.  I have no idea if anything I learned about Anakin Skywalker is true, but I believe it is.”

               “And that’s all you know?”

               Leia nodded.  “I’ve dug through the Archives of the Empire too, but a lot of information about Darth Vader was lost, or was never recorded.  He just was…”  Her voice trailed off again.  Then, she looked Rey directly in the eyes, making Rey flinch back.  “I believe he was a good man, Rey, who made a few bad decisions.  Not that he was a bad man who chose to do the right thing.”  They both knew, though, they Leia wasn’t only trying to justify Darth Vader.

               “Yes,” Rey breathed, and Leia released her from the intensity of her gaze.

               “Oh, that reminds me,” Leia said with a sudden burst of energy.  “I came here for a reason.”

               “Oh?” Rey asked, sitting up a little straighter.

               “Yes, I’ve got an assignment for you, if you’re interested.”  Leia chuckled when Rey’s eyes lit up, and she put a hand up to stop the inevitable barrage of questions.  “Don’t get too excited.  You won’t be leaving the planet.”  Instantly, Rey deflated, and Leia had to stop herself from chuckling once more.

               “Am I making a grocery run?” Rey asked sarcastically, and this time Leia couldn’t help but laugh.

               “Close,” the General responded, taking a deep breath.  “If you choose to accept, I’ll have Poe brief you in the conference room, but essentially you’d be repairing a radio tower on the other side of the planet.”

               Rey mulled it over in her mind, but she didn’t need much convincing.  Despite the fact that she wouldn’t even break the atmosphere, she’d have the opportunity to leave this island.  She’d get to fly, for the first time in almost three months.

               “Who all would be going?” she asked, and Leia smiled.

               “Just you and R2-D2.  I trust that’s not a problem,” Leia said.  Rey shook her head, a smile on her face.

               “I’ll accept,” Rey said easily, just as the General expected.

               “Splendid,” she said, standing up.  She hardly had to lean any weight onto her cane anymore, Rey noted with a quiet optimism.  She’d been healing slowly since the debacle that had left her momentarily stranded in space, but she was healing nonetheless.  “Poe is waiting to brief you in the conference room.”

               “Of course he is,” Rey said with a smile, and the headache she’d all but forgotten about flared against her temples.  Rey grimaced and sucked in a rapid breath, and Leia looked at her with concern, which Rey responded to by shaking her head.  “It’s nothing, honestly; just a bit of a headache.”

               “You’ve been getting headaches more and more frequently,” Leia noted, and Rey looked at the older woman, surprised.  She seldom complained of the headache (because, truthfully, it’d only been one singular headache, consistent over these months).  She seemed to have more insight than Rey was aware.

               “I imagine it’s the stress of being grounded,” Rey said offhandedly, and Leia laughed, the sound dispelling the last of the tension in the room.  Rey stood, matching pace with Leia as they walked down the long corridor leading from the personal chambers to the technical section of the base.  The place was a fortress of steel, buried halfway underground, the metal of the walls and floors reinforced with six layers of protection.  The only windows were in the personal quarters, small portholes that looked out to the cliff leading to the eighty-foot drop into the sea.  There were approximately thirty rooms on one side, many people having to bunk together (though Rey offered, no one took to being her roommate).

               She’d opted for the last room, so she had windows on two sides rather than one, though the amount of natural light able to weasel its way into her room was abysmal, at best.  But it awarded her the most amount of privacy for her meditation and personal Jedi training sessions.

               Next to her was the room Poe and Finn shared, though neither of them ever frequented their quarters – both were busy, running reconnaissance missions and using her knowledge of scavenging to bring back materials and supplies from neighboring planets.

               Next to that was the room Rose Tico shared with Lieutenant Kaydel Ko Connix, two people that seemed relatively important to her friends, though beyond awkward introductions, they’d not seemed terribly interested in getting to know Rey.  Finn told her they were nervous, being around a hero of Starkiller, the last Jedi-in-training, and the only person who knew Luke Skywalker personally outside of Leia.

               Unfortunately, with Poe and Finn being the only two people not afraid of her now running the bulk of the missions, Rey could get somewhat lonely.  She’d tried to strike up conversations with Rose, since she was around the most – she’d gotten badly hurt on Crait, saving Finn’s life (for which Rey made sure to berate him for a solid month), and was grounded just as Rey was.  But spending years alone in the desert didn’t exactly help Rey hone her social skills, and from what Finn said, Rose was also quite awkward, so the conversations tended to fizzle almost as soon as they started.

               Across from the quarters were platforms that led to the ship hangars.  They were strategically immersed in the side of the cliff, two broad stairwells the only entrances, and the doors were hidden in camouflage when closed, which was less now that the fleet felt safer.  If the First Order knew where they were hiding, they’d have been here by now.

               A long hallway connected the chambers and hangars to the other side of the base, where the technical aspects were located.  This is where Leia and Connix spent the vast majority of their time.  Two conference rooms – one used for storage – flanked a large station full of dated holo-projectors and computers Rose and Poe had been strategically updating every time they brought back new tech.  Rey could navigate the computers well enough, but she had so little experience with such tech.

               Hence the lightsaber.

               They moseyed their way into the conference room, where Poe was flipping through the pages of a datapad far too rapidly to retain any of the information before him.  He glanced up when they entered, a broad smile on his face when he made eye contact with Rey.

               “I see you accepted the General’s generous proposal,” Poe said, standing up and setting the datapad off to the side.  Rey smiled, but Leia gave an incredulous look.

               “Now, Commander,” she said, the title rewarded back to Poe after he’d made the decision to pull back from the battering ram on Crait.  Leia had been so proud of him for finally making a decision that saved lives.  “Don’t let Rey think that her being stuck on this planet while you run amuck around the galaxy is fair.  We both know you could use a babysitter up there.”  Poe’s face dropped, and Leia elbowed Rey playfully, who was hiding her snickers behind her hand.

               Poe cleared his throat, drumming his fingers on the table.  “Yeah, well, I couldn’t let her take all the credit for the missions forever, could I?  She was too good.  That’s why I had Hux put that bounty on her head.”  At this, Leia chuckled, and it was moments like these Rey reveled in.  Laid back and upbeat, a reprieve from the constant worry that shook every Resistance member down to their bones.

               They’d made it to Barkhesh with just over forty members.  Finn had been in charge of finding any stray members on planets, which is why he was here so rarely – Rey didn’t think she’d seen him in nearly a month.  The process was slow, but they were up to nearly sixty – a small increase, but an increase nonetheless.  Rey knew they had to focus on the positives.

               “Anyway,” Poe said, his signature smile playing casually across his face, “the mission.”

               “Yes, let’s get to it,” Rey said, trying not to jump in excitement.  The more she thought about it, the more she ached to get started.  Leia smiled warmly.

               “It’s fairly simple,” Poe said, tapping a few keys to ignite the holo-projector.  It hummed to life, and the faint, dated green glow of the planet filled the space on the table in front of them.  “This is where we are,” he said, highlighting a specific part of the planet.  Rey nodded, remembering where she’d landed the Falcon.  “The radio tower is here,” Poe said, hitting another key and allowing a map to be drawn.  It ran, quite literally, to the other side of the planet.

               “The computers here, if you haven’t noticed, are relatively old,” Leia interjected, and Poe nodded.

               “This radio was the primary way Rebels back in the day would communicate with any other rebel fleets stretched across the Outer Rim and beyond,” Poe picked back up.  “It’s got an incredibly strong signal, able to send information across the galaxy in a matter of minutes.”

               “This is vital,” Leia said.  “The comm systems here work, but they’re slow.  Signals take hours to reach their destination.”

               “Try days,” Connix mumbled under her breath, and Rey chuckled.

               “Up until now, we haven’t needed to communicate information to the far reaches.  We didn’t have anyone out there willing to help us.”  Poe looked at her steadily.  “However, on my last mission, I picked up some coordinates that we didn’t have when Leia sent out her distress signal on Crait.”

               “They connect through to an old friend of mine,” Leia clarified.

               “We want you to go to this tower and fix it,” Poe said.  “There’s more than one thing wrong, from what we picked up, but the biggest priority is that this signal isn’t traceable by the First Order.”

               “What makes you think it would be?” Rey asked.

               “This planet was known for transmissions back in the day of the Empire,” Leia said, using her old knowledge.  “I’m sure they would have found the tower and put a track on any rebel messages sent.  After the Empire fell, I’m sure the First Order took control of all of that technology.”

               “Wouldn’t it be faster to just wait to send the signal to your friend from here?”  Rey absolutely didn’t want to talk her superiors out of this mission, but she didn’t want to expend their precious resources.  Leia smiled.

               “This isn’t just to contact my friend, Rey,” Leia responded.  “This is about being able to reach any and all stragglers in every corner of the galaxy.  And while I’m sure my friend would receive such a message, there’s no guarantee he won’t ask questions before boarding a ship and flying all the way here.”

               “So the back and forth might take…”

               “Hours, or even days,” Poe clarified.  “And the message is more likely to be intercepted, moving that slowly.

               “This will make this place viable again,” Leia added.  “A comm tower with that much power will help us hack into the First Order telecom as well.”

               “But you need the tower to be coded in order to do that,” Rey said, and Poe nodded.  “Alright.  I think I can handle that.”

               “Perfect,” Poe smiled.  “You’ll take Artoo and an X-Wing in the morning to some coordinates I’ll put into the dash.  You might have to do some repairing, so I’ll add a tool kit and three days’ worth of ration packs.”

               “Oh, one more thing,” Leia said.  “The control panel.”

               “Right,” Poe nodded.  “The control panel for the tower is hooked into the power box.  It should be remote, though, so as soon as you’re able to encrypt the messages—“

               “Bring the control panel back,” Rey nodded.  “The encryption has to be done from the power box?”

               “We think it’s the most surefire way to make sure the tower emits a silent signal,” Connix piped up.  Rey smiled at her, and she smiled back, much to Rey’s surprise.

               “It sounds simple enough,” Rey noted.  “I leave in the morning?”

               “Yeah.  I’ll make sure to have everything prepped and ready, so you get a good night’s rest,” Poe joked, and Leia and Rey both laughed.  They knew Poe didn’t trust anyone _but_ Rey with his precariously rebuilt X-Wings.

               “Okay,” Rey said, clapping her hands together.  “I should go pack.  Three days, you think?”

               “Shouldn’t take longer than that,” Poe said, once more returning to his datapad.  Connix went back to her computer.  Leia walked around the table, looking over Poe’s shoulder at whatever he was researching.

               The moment was over, and Rey was on the outside again.

               Resigning herself, she walked out of the conference room.

 

......

               Rey quickly gathered a few necessary supplies and shoved them into a duffel, leaving it and her quarterstaff by the door.  She strolled over to the ‘fresher room, stopping just short of the doorway, looking back at her desk.  Something within her called to the lightsaber pieces strewn about.  Before taking the opportunity to second-guess herself, she gathered the pieces and carefully set them on top of her other belongings in the duffel, the kyber crystal glowing on top.  There was that same fear, interrupting her thoughts, wondering whether or not she’d actually be able to fix it.

               The headache stormed through her mind with a mighty fury all of a sudden, and she had to lean against the desk to steady herself.  She needed to relax.  She was stressing herself with nonsense.

               With a deep breath, Rey walked into the ‘fresher, stripping her clothes and throwing them into the steam cleaner.  She untied her hair from the braid she’d been wearing it in, scratching her hair out as she started the water.

               That was something she’d still not gotten used to – bathing in water.  On Jakku, the only experience she’d had in bathing was in a sonic shower.  But the dust and dirt of the desert was all-encompassing, and no matter how much she showered, she never felt clean.

               But here, on this planet _full_ of water – so much, that they literally had the ability to let it fall from the ceiling – Rey had been fascinated, scrubbing herself for a solid hour the first day.  Now, though, she’d learned to enjoy her time and not waste the reservoir of fresh water. 

               Leia had given Rey some perfumed soaps and shampoos that made her skin feel like flower petals and her hair smell like a meadow.  The scent of her body wash wafted around her, and tense muscles soothed beneath the pressure of water.

               The rain on Ahch-To had fascinated her.  Water falling from the sky, bleeding into the earth around her, feeding the new life beneath her feet.  She couldn’t help but reach out, let the droplets caress the exposed skin of her hands.  She didn’t know such was possible in nature.

               Here, though, it was condensed and warm.  It wrapped her in a blanket of steam, caressing her entire body.

               Her mind drifted back to Ahch-To.  Reaching out to caress something else in the light of the fire.  Reaching…

               A sudden, unexpectedly _painful_ tug in the back of her mind interrupted her thoughts, and Rey’s eyes snapped open with a gasp.  Instinctively, she brought her hand up to her head, running her fingers through the silk of hair, attempting to find a break or a cut.  Instantly, she felt foolish; the pull hadn’t been _here,_ the way she was here.

               Still, she turned the water off and quickly jumped out of the shower, waiting for the inevitable moment that _he_ would appear.  She grabbed a towel, drying herself off and wrapping it around her quickly.

               Another, even harder _yank,_ so forceful it felt like someone had wrapped a rope around her brain and was attempting to drag her away, and Rey cried out, burying her head in her hands as she crouched on the ‘fresher floor.  She couldn’t believe, with such force that this was happening, she hadn’t been pulled back physically.

               The pain ebbed slowly, and Rey opened her eyes.  The lights in here were suddenly much too bright, and she reached out with the Force to turn them off.  Her saturated hair was causing cold rivulets of water to cascade down her face and neck, but she stayed still for a moment, checking to make sure her defenses were still firmly locked in place within her mind.

               The headache flared to life under her careful examination, and Rey tried desperately to push it aside until she was absolutely certain _he_ wasn’t going to pop up in her living quarters.

               An ache in her chest she’d been slowly piecing back together these last few months rifted open once more, and Rey wrapped her arms around her torso, as though that might help keep her from breaking apart.

               She’d never admit her disappointment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A HUGE thank you to all of the wonderful comments and kudos left on my first chapter!!!
> 
> Chapter two over and out!
> 
> I know this one was mostly informative, and it didn't involve Ben, but I promise he'll be around next update.
> 
> This is a context chapter, so I'll post another update within the next couple of days. This kind of stuff is necessary for plot, I promise.


	3. in which one space nerd thinks too hard about literally everything and hurts himself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a Ben-centric chapter to offset the Rey-centric previous chapter. Take a look at the inner-workings of our Supreme Leader's life. (He's pretty boring tbh)
> 
> Also if you're into it, I really think Neptune by Sleeping at Last is a good song to listen to while reading this chapter (I'm a little obsessed with this band rn but I promise only like one other chapter will reference them). It's such a Ben Solo song.

               The conference room was a bustle of activity amongst bankers and First Order benefactors.  All of it was information Ren had no real desire to know.  The Order had no need for financial contributions, it hadn’t since it was nothing more than Snoke’s brainchild.  With the Republic no longer, the First Order was able to seize control of all Republic systems – something Hux’s unusually intelligent orders and intense military had taken care of during the…distractions leading up to Crait.  Taxes previously paid to the Republic were now filtered into the First Order funds.  It helped that there was galactic dissatisfaction with the Republic prior to the destruction of the Hosnian system, he supposed.  All creatures had a predisposition to want safety in their lives.  Clearly the Republic hadn’t offered such.

               Thanks to Snoke’s careful planning, starting the First Order off as an army to be commissioned for protection by Republic-controlled systems, the credits had begun pouring in as soon as the first platoon of Brendol Hux’s Stormtroopers was deployed.  Though the Republic was efficient politically, they had no desire to provide military coverage, and even the most effective systems had internal issues.

               Issues the Republic did not want to solve with their own military – after all, the last Republic-run military was the Jedi Order and the Clone Troopers, and that had devolved into genocide.  So, Snoke, a Republic Senator representing his “home” system at the time (a façade; not even Ren knew where Snoke originally came from), proposed the idea of a separate military built from the ashes of the Empire – Republic jurisdiction, but not technically part of the Republic.

               Idiotically, they’d agreed, though Ren wondered if he’d used some type of mass Force manipulation technique.

               The agreement consisted of Snoke running four separate platoons of troopers, aiding civil wars amongst planets in the most ill-known recesses of the Republic.

               That they believed he’d only keep to four platoons was foolish, but they had no reason to believe otherwise.  After all, Leia Organa herself had endorsed Senator Snoke’s campaign to become representative of his system.

               Snoke was able to build an army under the nose of the Republic.  It wasn’t until Ben Solo had started showing the extent of his Force sensitivity that Leia became suspicious.  Though Ren was too young to remember, his mother had let it slip that Snoke took an extra, almost too-personal interest in the raising and rearing of him.

               Kylo Ren shook his head, trying to get rid of these nonsense thoughts.  All of this was buried in the past, right where it should be.  He brought himself back to the present, where Hux was dealing with the benefactors, who had insisted on meeting aboard Ren’s ship, the Ascendancy, to discuss political stratagems on the assimilation of all remaining Republic systems.

               Hux named the ship after using an incredible amount of credits to rebuild what was left of the Supremacy – a ship of Hux’s design, of course.  Ren nearly killed him – this ship was large and intimidating, but ultimately the Finalizer would have been a fine home base for the First Order.  The Supremacy-turned-Ascendancy was a literal city, and Hux would have none of Ren’s arguments.  He insisted that what made the First Order tick as well as it did was never having to touch planetside.

               “Your numbers were practically quartered,” one of the bankers, a burly khommite, which was a commodity of itself, brought up poignantly.  “What do you intend to do to make sure our systems have proper coverage for these ridiculous uprisings?”

               “Now, please,” General Hux said, standing from where he’d been sitting on the side of the table opposite to Ren.  “When there is any… unexpected takeover of power,” Ren noted the way that word seemed to stick in the back of Hux’s throat, “there is expected to be outcries of anger and hostility.  There are a number of Stormtrooper classes graduating these next few weeks, and each system has been assigned a platoon of voluntary soldiers to tide things over until the troopers are ready to deploy.”

               “Do these voluntary soldiers even know how to battle, were things to come down to it?”  This spoken by a rather unfortunate looking Twi’lek woman.  She was flesh-colored, and her lekku were draped across either shoulder and crossed, giving her the perplexing look of someone crossing their arms much too high on their chest.  Ren nearly laughed as he made the assessment.

               “Our volunteers are put through the same training exercises as our stormtroopers, but a condensed version.  Trust me, they learn all they need to know to become excellent soldiers.”

               _Without the brainwashing_ , Ren thought sarcastically.  The voluntary soldiers had been Ren’s own idea – build an army of people already devoted to the Order – but Hux had implemented and developed it.  They would join for the increased benefits the Order offered; steady paychecks higher than most of the galaxy was receiving on a monthly basis, a guaranteed three meals a day, and shelter.  Creatures from every corner of the galaxy were practically fighting each other to sign up when Hux released the official order.

               “And what of another super weapon?” asked a plump, greedy-looking man who would have made Ren’s skin crawl not too many years ago.  More recently, he’d dealt with too many politicians who resembled this man quite remarkably.

               “Such production has been… halted,” Hux said, eyeing Ren from across the table, who met his gaze evenly.  “The _Supreme Leader_ thinks of the defense of Starkiller to be unnecessary.”

               This caused an uproar – all of these wealthy, selfish people, who could only gain from the building of another weapon, crying out in anger as they realized that such would not be plausible in the eyes of the new Supreme Leader.  No, Ren wouldn’t allow it.  These were nothing more than filthy rats who only feared what they could lose, without the implication that anyone who would go against them could be destroyed in an instant.

               They all shouted over one another, desperate for their words to be heard, because in their own minds, theirs were the only words that mattered.  Stars forbid their neighbor’s opinion be heard first.  Ren tuned out the noise for a moment, wishing for nothing more than a quiet spot to meditate, until…

               “This is not what Supreme Leader Snoke would have allowed!”

               Kylo Ren stood, allowing the full height of him to become an imposing feature within the conference room.  Silence commenced in an instant, and he had to stop himself from smirking.  His hand twitched toward his lightsaber, desperate to make a lesson out of the insubordinate that spoke out against him, but he relaxed after a beat.

               “I imagine,” he said after letting the silence stretch on just a moment too long, “that your own credits would go toward the construction of such a weapon, considering your insistence that it’s necessary?”

               A lot of uncomfortable shifting in chairs, gazes cast away in embarrassment.  Everyone wanted a super weapon capable of destroying entire systems, but no one wanted to pay for it.  These men and women had the brain power of bantha dung between the eight of them.

               “I wasn’t expecting volunteers,” he finally said, and a sliver of the tension in the air dissipated.  “It’s clear to me that none of you are willing to expend the necessary credits to build another Starkiller, or a weapon similar.”  Ren made sure to meet the gaze of each of them, and each of them looked away under his scrutiny.  “I am not willing to cost the Order another million soldiers because some trigger-happy pilot with an X-Wing found their way into our defenses.”  He knew he was recycling his argument verbatim that he’d had with Hux, but it was the best argument he had.

               “What about defense?” the Twi’lek woman asked, though her voice was feeble, wavering with fear.  Ren had to stop himself from rolling his eyes, and the headache pulsed to life – though whether this was his normal or from the sheer stupidity of those surrounding him, he wasn’t sure.

               “I have implemented the voluntary soldiers,” he responded, trying desperately not to sound sarcastic.  These were a group he needed to keep on his side – lest they choose to spend their billions of credits elsewhere.  Say, rebuilding the Resistance, for example.  “Should you need their assistance, they will be readily available to you, and the Stormtrooper classes General Hux mentioned will be joining them in a few short weeks.”  The headache was suddenly pounding, feeling like someone was on the inside of his skull trying to beat their way out.

               “My Lord, with all due respect—“

               “General Hux will answer any additional questions you may have,” Ren said, before turning and brusquely walking out of the conference room.  He narrowed his eyes against the sharp lights of the Ascendancy, focusing on his footsteps as they made their way toward the lift – toward his chambers.  He needed to be cloaked in darkness, to meditate this headache as far away as it was willing to go.

               As soon as the lift doors closed, he leaned against the wall, shutting his eyes to the bright lights that surrounded him.  Why did they find it necessary to put so many kriffing _lights_ in this place?  It was worse than looking at a star, because the lights here were all-consuming.  Not allowing a single space of darkness.

               Breathing slowly as the lift ascended toward his quarters, Ren opened his eyes.  The lifts were the same on any First Order ship – a cylinder, surrounded on all sides by light, and the doors opening on both sides; into the hangar at the base on one side, then opening on any additional floor from the other side.

               It was the same as the lift that had been on Supremacy.

               When he’d ridden up to the throne room with the scavenger.

               Ren closed his eyes to the memory, trying to shove it away, bury it in his mind where it belonged – next to the grave of Ben Solo.  It was no use; the images rushed over him like a tidal wave, dragging him back to that day, back to the ocean of _her_.

               _“Ben,”_ she’d said, her voice so soft, so comforting, and he so nearly got lost in her depthless hazel eyes.  They’d been swimming with compassion, with a look he never thought he’d receive from anyone.  And that name, rolling off her lips so easily, as if she’d always called him that.  The name he’d tried so hard to destroy, bludgeon, murder with the darkness.  Suddenly, he didn’t hate the way it sounded when it was wrapped up in _her_ voice.  It was like a security blanket, draped around him, making him feel, for the first time in so many years, like maybe he wouldn’t be alone.

               Ever since, Ben Solo had been clawing his way out of his grave within Kylo Ren’s mind.  He could feel it with every decision he made – that pull, in the back of his mind.  The pull to the light; the pull to _her_.

               If Ben Solo had been in charge of his decisions, he’d have fallen to his knees in front of her and given her whatever she’d asked of him.  His lightsaber, his loyalty.

               His life.

               But Kylo Ren had had enough insight to give the scavenger the decision.

               She’d chosen against him.  Chosen to leave.

               Abandoning him with the darkness once more.

               Finally, the lift stopped on his floor, and Ren quickly brushed past the two waiting Stormtroopers, who both saluted despite not being given a second glance.

               Alone in his chambers, Ren dimmed the lights as low as possible, with barely enough left for him to see.  He tossed his gloves and cloak to the side, then sank, cross-legged, into the middle of the floor.

               The one thing he’d taken from the Jedi Academy was meditating.  It eased his mind, allowing him to reach out and see the Force, an intricate web of energy that hummed through the entire ship.

               This was what helped most with the headache.  It ebbed, slowly, allowing the energy of the Force to seep into his mind fully, without any distractions.  While it never fully went away, it did become a nearly insignificant annoyance.

               Pulling in a deep breath, Ren fell into the abyss of the Force, searching mindlessly through the pinpricks of signatures that surrounded him.  There was no turmoil here, no conflict like he was so apt to find within himself.  No, within this web, there was only _balance._   He didn’t have to call upon the Dark Side of the Force to relish in the freedom of balance – it came naturally, from his Jedi training days.

               Carefully, so as not to exert too much energy, Ren reached further out into the void, searching for a particular signature.  It was one he was not familiar with, but he was sure he’d know it when he found it.

               Skywalker had mentioned to him that, when a Jedi dies, their life, their very essence becomes part of the Living Force.  A young, wide-eyed Ben Solo had asked a million questions about that, and Luke had been happy to quell the curiosity with answers.  He said he’d seen his old masters, and even his father within that Force.

               Ren hadn’t known that Vader was Luke’s father at the time.

               Ever since he’d found out, he’d spent what little free time he could get – the amount had increased, unexpectedly, with his takeover of the throne, no doubt a direct correlation with the lack of intrusion from his old Master in his mind and his activities – searching that Force, looking for answers within his grandfather’s life force.

               Searching for Darth Vader.

               Ren reached farther, feeling the galaxy stretching out before him.  Endless and brilliant, each signature shining like a tiny star on an unmapped system.  Looking for that unfamiliarly familiar signature.

               With a terrible, painful _pull_ within the back of his mind, Ren was thrust out of meditation, his eyes snapping open.  His fingers twitched and a small gasp escaped his lips.  It was as if there was a rope, tied around his mind, trying to pull him in a direction he was not willing to go, a direction that did not exist anymore.

               Ren sat for a moment, waiting, listening to the silence that surrounded him, before he closed his eyes and attempted to reach back out and find Vader.

               An even harder, more painful _jerking_ tore him once more from his own mind, causing him to gasp loudly, and if he’d not been so sure of his form, he’d have thought he’d stumbled backwards.  It yanked him hard, diverting his attention completely and leaving a throbbing pain in his mind.  His hand ran shakily through his hair.  The headache opened wide all at once in his mind, flooding his senses.  He leaned his elbows onto his knees, groping his head to make sure there was no physical difference.

               What in the _kriffing stars_ was _that?_

               His eyes scanned the room, waiting for the inevitable moment when the scavenger would appear before him, but she didn’t.  He knew, though, that this was their connection, trying to tell him something.  For a brief, panicked moment, he wondered if perhaps a bounty hunter had found her.  But he could still feel her Force signature within the galaxy, could still feel the cold of her closed doors within his mind.

               She was alive.

               The relief he felt was overwhelming.

               And that was infuriating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm actually blown away by the kudos and comments I've been getting on this - truly, I didn't realize that something I just kind of sat down and started typing out one day would be met with such positive responses. I thank each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart.
> 
> That being said, a wonderfully insightful reader, Blackeyedlily, brought up that Rey's crystal was split in half during the Force battle between her and Ben. Which I am aware of now, since the release of the novelization, but at the time I began writing this I merely assumed they'd simply split the saber, keeping the crystal intact. I originally began this story sometime in late January, and am only now deciding to post it - but I'm actually 147k words into the story itself and still writing (which really only means that you guys have a lot to look forward to!). With the direction I chose to take the plot, there are several key components that came out with the release of the novelization I elected to ignore for purpose of having a mostly-completed plot line already written. Those things will become apparent in later chapters.
> 
> (To touch on what Blackeyedlily mentioned about the crystal being split in half reminiscent of a broken heart, due to the crystal being the heart of the saber - my opinion mirrors yours, of course, but when I wrote the part, I was thinking about how the lightsaber is the lifeblood of a Jedi. So the romanticism of the broken crystal reflecting Rey's broken heart sort of shines through when I think of that - not that her heart was broken, but that she literally felt as though her life was forked in two different paths, and she had to choose one.)
> 
> Feel free to leave any additional questions in the comments, and I will address them with the next chapter update.
> 
> Kudos are always very much appreciated. Thank you guys so much again!


	4. in which a space nerd spends a lot of time in the forest with an unruly droid

               Rey stared at her ceiling for hours before the first fingers of light filtered through her porthole windows.  While she’d not been sleeping well for some time now, she chalked tonight’s restlessness up to adrenaline.  Finally, after so many weeks of being forced to stay put, Rey was actually _going_ somewhere, and _doing_ something to help the Resistance outside of rebuilding broken ships.

               As soon as the blackness of her room began lightening into a dreary gray, Rey was up, lacing her boots and wrapping her arm bands.  While she was now the owner of a set of sleep clothes that Leia had conjured up from somewhere, Rey seldom felt comfortable using them.  If something happened and she needed to be awake and out the door in a matter of seconds, she’d rather not have to wrestle from one set of slightly more comfortable yet seemingly impractical clothes and into her battle-ready outfit.

               Rather, she slept in her regular clothes – different than those she’d worn on Jakku or Ahch-To.  She wrapped tan arm bands from wrist to her upper forearm and wore a leather wrist bracer on both hands.  Her sleeveless undertunic was black, as were her tight-fitted pants.  They clung to her all the way to her ankles, which were hidden up to her knees in tan utility boots.  Over that she wore a tan tabard, synching the outfit together with a thick brown belt that clipped across her waist and a second that draped down her hip with a pouch attached.  On top of that, she’d pull on a poncho for the cold or wet nights, but typically she wore light.  She’d been doing a lot more running during missions, when she’d actually been able to go on them.

               Rey secured her blaster to her thigh with a holster and walked into the ‘fresher room, using the mirror to help her braid her hair.  She left most of it loose, brushing against her collarbones, and braided one side against her head, then followed the flow of her hair, cinching it with a band.

               With a slow breath, Rey grabbed her duffel and her quarterstaff and walked out of the room.

               The walk to the hangar was short, and Rey was surprised to find Poe loading up her X-Wing for her.

               “I could have done that,” Rey said, climbing up the ladder and throwing her duffel into the ship, behind the pilot’s seat.  She strapped the quarterstaff against the back of the seat and threw one leg over the side, looking at Poe.

               “Yes, well,” Poe said with a shrug.  Rey noted the deep circles beneath Poe’s eyes.

               “Have you slept?” she asked, more out of curiosity; she knew very well she wasn’t one to talk.

               “Have you?” he retorted, nodding at her own matching circles.  Rey chuckled as Poe closed the hatch to the engine, slapping it twice.  “You should be all set.  She shouldn’t blow up on you so long as you don’t take her out of atmo.”

               “Very reassuring,” Rey said sarcastically, and Poe laughed.  She looked around the hangar, noting the ships still absent.  “Any word from Finn’s fleet?”

               “Not yet,” Poe responded, wiping the grease off his hands on a rag and sliding down the hood of the ship.  “But they’re not due back until next week, so it’s possible there aren’t any updates.”

               “You’ll let me know when you hear back?”

               “Of course,” Poe smiled.  “Your comm is already programmed to the correct station, so you’ll be able to reach out to us if you need us.”

               “Thank you,” Rey said, pressing a button that hoisted Artoo into the ship.  It beeped at the unexpected intrusion and Rey laughed.  “Sorry,” she shouted at the droid, and it beeped sarcastically.

               Poe climbed down the ladder as Rey lowered herself into the cockpit.  He jogged over and pressed the button to open the doors as Rey started the ship.  They creaked open with a loud groan that probably woke the whole base, and Rey flinched.

               “Good luck!” Poe called over the roar of the engine.  Rey saluted as the transparisteel lowered over her head.  She settled into the seat, powered up the control dash and clicked to get the preloaded coordinates entered.

               And she was off.

 xxx

               They circled the island where the tower was supposed to be a couple times, but Rey couldn’t see it through the dense foliage.  She decided to land on the beach and hike to where it was supposed to be, smack in the middle of the forest.

               “I could use the exercise,” she told Artoo as the droid clambered over the sand, beeping low, the words translated not quite so polite.  Rey laughed, ducking under the brush and holding it up for Artoo to roll beneath.

               They hiked for a couple hours, Artoo never failing to complain and Rey never failing to laugh about it, when they finally came across the control panel.

               It was overgrown with vines, and Rey pulled the utility tool from her hip pouch, clicking the knife up and cutting through the plants.  It was clearly a dated piece of technology, a large box cradling a smaller panel.  There were two clips on either side of the panel where they locked in place within the box – she assumed this is what she would open to get the panel out and take it back to the base.

               The buttons within the panel were warped with age and use.  Rey pressed a couple of buttons, willing the thing to make some indication of its function.   Pressing randomly, she finally flipped the correct switch and the box hummed to life.  After a moment, the panel lit up with electricity, and Rey smiled as she brushed the last of the elements away.

               “Come on,” she said to Artoo after she’d gotten it all clean.  “We’ll follow this powerline.  I can only assume it leads to the radio tower.”  They walked slowly, Rey having to bend down often to cut away vines that had crept over the powerline.

               Nature had a habit of taking back the land that belonged to it.

               They stepped over a large set of tree roots and made their way into a small meadow, and the radio tower stood in the middle.  Rey’s excitement over finding the source of their trip was cut short almost immediately.

               It had probably once stood proudly within the space, a true beacon into the galaxy.  Now, it was half-bent out of shape, cut by what Rey could only assume was the lightning of an incredible storm.  The metal beams were snapped and warped, the top of the tower twisted so it nearly touched the ground.  The satellite dish she assumed went at the top was cast aside like a piece of garbage some twenty yards away.

               “Well,” Rey said after an extended period of shocked silence.  “I think this might take a little longer than three days.  Should we get to work?”  Artoo beeped, and Rey chuckled.  The droid, it seemed, was not at all excited to get started.

               Rey set her belongings on a spongey patch of grass and rifled through the duffel.  Poe had packed a rope, and she’d had a cinch tool buried at the bottom of the main pocket.  She pulled it out, attached it to one end of the rope, and used the weight of it to throw it over the highest in-tact beam.

               Half the rope came down the other side.  “Alright, Artoo.  I’m going to rig a harness for you.”

               The droid beeped anxiously, and Rey shook her head.  “I won’t drop you, I promise.”  The droid beeped again, not believing her, of course.  Rey smiled, wrapping the rope around the it despite its protests.  “Is a promise not worth anything to you?”

               The droid beeped another sarcastic response, and Rey laughed, tightening the rope around the bodice.  “You’ve got a torch, right?”  Artoo lit it up, and Rey nodded.  “I’m going to pull you up and keep you up there.  Then I’ll bend the bars back into place, and you weld the parts back together.”

               The droid beeped, asking her if she truly thought this plan would work, and Rey nodded optimistically.

               “Of course it’ll work!” she said, pulling back and using the rope to pulley Artoo to the top of the tower.  “I hope,” she whispered under her breath.

               She used all of her upper body strength, grunting with exertion.  “You need to lose some weight!” she shouted up at the droid, who beeped back angrily, causing Rey to laugh and almost lose her hold.  Artoo screeched, shifting, and Rey propped her leg up against the tower to hold it steady.  The droid let out a slew of impolite beeps as Rey secured the rope in place.

               “Yes, I know, that was my fault,” she admitted, backing away from the tower a few steps so she could get a better view.  “Alright, get ready!” she shouted, and Artoo beeped back.

               Rey took a deep breath, reaching out into the web of energy around her and pulling it forward in that natural, mystical way.  She’d gotten better at manipulating the Force, finding more time to work on her Jedi training since she’d been grounded.  She clenched her hands, using the strength within her as well as the strength of the Force to twist the metal beams to her will.

               The metal groaned and shook under the pressure, and Rey pressed harder with the Force, beads of sweat forming on her forehead, as the beams slowly rose.  She twisted them slowly, urging them back into their original shape.  Artoo lit his torch, using his legs to pull back away from the beam, and began welding the metal back together.  When the beam was secured, it’d extend its third leg and kick off to the next nearest beam, waiting for Rey to pull it back into place.

               They worked like this for hours, until the sun was beginning to set and Rey didn’t trust herself to work without it.  She let go of the Force slowly, but the exhaustion ripped through her all at once, and the headache came pounding to the forefront of her mind.  Her hands were shaking as she untied Artoo’s rope, slowly lowering the droid back to the ground.  It beeped tiredly, as well, and informed her as soon as its feet were on the ground that it was going into low-power mode.  Rey nodded her approval, and the droid powered down.

               With a slow, shaky breath, Rey wiped the sweat from her forehead and looked up at the tower.  It was most of the way back in place, a few support beams still dangling precariously.  All they’d have to do is put those back in place, and Rey would re-attach the satellite.

               She cleared a small patch of foliage and built a fire for the night, gathering as much dry wood she could find within grabbing distance.  She sat down on the toppled trunk of a tree and took another breath, feeling the exhaustion pulling her eyelids shut.

               She knew she needed to comm Poe and let him know this mission would take longer than originally planned, but her eyes drooped lower.

               “I need to eat,” she said aloud to no one in particular.  An echo of her life spent alone on Jakku.  She practically crawled across the meadow, pulling out a ration pack and her canteen, which was empty, of course.  With a sigh, she unrolled her bedmat and stood up.  Her limbs protested, and she stretched them, her shoulders and knees popping all at once.

               There was a small stream nearby, and Rey made her way for it, feeling the exhaustion dragging her back toward her bedmat.  But she couldn’t sleep without getting some sustenance in her stomach.  Besides, she was almost this tired every day she spent on Jakku.  Though that felt like another lifetime now.

               She stumbled into the stream just as the last of the sun’s light set behind the skyline.  Dipping her hands into the soothing cold, she brought them up to her mouth, quenching her thirst and refreshing the dry ache in her throat.  Since water was no longer something she had to fight for, she’d considered drinking a luxury and never let herself get this thirsty.  Today was an unintentional exception, with her attention diverted as it was.

               Her work had been grueling.

               After filling her belly with water, she dipped the canteen into the stream, setting it there until the last of the bubbles made their way to the surface.  She capped it and sloshed her way back to the clearing, which seemed further and further away.

               Finally, after what felt like hours but was in reality only minutes, she found her bedmat.  She threw a couple of logs onto the fire to get a good blaze going, reminding herself to cut more in the morning.

               She ripped open a ration pack and ate it as quickly as possible, barely tasting the nutrients her body so desperately craved.  She washed it down with a swig from the canteen and laid back, asleep before her head hit the pillow.

 xxx

               _‘I must be dreaming.’  This was an atypical response, her mind usually muddled between dreams and reality during sleep, never able to pinpoint the truth.  This time, however, she was well aware that she was unconscious, her body somewhere that she was not.  She was standing in a desert, not unlike the desert of Jakku, but it was different at the same time.  The sand seemed finer, almost.  The air didn’t feel as coarse or as biting.  The wind didn’t whip dust into her face – the breezes felt more gentle._

_She took a deep breath in through her nose, and the planet even smelled different.  More salty, as though this place had once been covered in water, but no more._

_Looking up, she watched twin suns as they danced through the sky together, beating down on the sand and letting the planet absorb the heat._

_She did not know this place, but it felt important.  Something, or perhaps_ more than one _something of significance had happened here._

 _Turning, Rey looked to the horizon and saw a silhouette, the back of a person facing away from her.  The Force urged her in that direction, and her feet were carrying her that way before she made the decision herself.  It felt_ right _, the way going to the Supremacy to see_ him _had felt right, and she briefly wondered if this was a trap, but her feet moved regardless of her hesitance._

 _She breathed thoughts of him away as she drew closer to the stranger, trudging through the miles of sand beneath her feet.  A black robe was billowing in the breeze, and for a fearful moment, she thought perhaps she was_ dreaming _of him.  Not that it would be the first time._

_But the form was wrong – not tall enough, shoulders not broad enough.  The hair seemed similar, but even in the dying light of the two suns, she could tell it was lighter._

_She wasn’t exactly sure when they’d started to set, but she shrugged off that inadequacy – this was a dream, after all._

_The figure turned toward her as she approached, but his face was mostly hidden in the shadows.  She narrowed her eyes against the light, trying to see, but the figure remained draped in darkness._

_“I finally got through,” a voice emanated from the figure, deep and languid.  He looked down at his hands.  “Well, for the most part, anyway.”_

_“Who are you?” Rey asked, her voice echoing around them in a peculiar way that his did not, holding a hand over her eyes in hopes that she might see the facial features of the man before her._

_“That is inconsequential, Rey,” the man responded, but his voice sounded amused, and she felt ridiculed.  Embarrassment flamed in her cheeks, and she stifled a sarcastic comment.  “I’m actually here to deliver a message.”_

_“A message?”_

_“From your old Master,” the figure nodded, and Rey’s eyes widened._

_“Luke,” she breathed, and she felt the finality of truth in her words._

_“Yes,” the figure responded, and she swore she caught the mischievous glimmer of blue eyes behind the shadowed face._

_“And he couldn’t deliver this message himself?” the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, and for a moment, she was afraid there would be consequences for speaking so brazenly to this stranger.  But she brushed those thoughts aside; after all, this was_ her _dream._

_“I wanted to see the last Jedi for myself,” the figure said simply.  She wanted to protest such a presumption, but he spoke before she got the chance.  “Rey, you must go to Tatooine.”_

_“Tatooine?” Rey repeated, recognizing the planet name from her previous conversation with General Organa.  “The desert planet where Darth Vader was born?”_

_“Precisely,” the man responded, and his voice was definitely amused this time.  “Many of the answers you seek are there.”_

_“Is that where we are?” she asked, looking around, though this question did not feel important enough._

_“It is,” he responded, and the tone of his voice eased her worries.  “Artoo has some of the answers you seek, but perhaps will only give you more questions, as well.”_

_“Artoo?” she asked.  “I’m not even sure what questions you believe I have.”_

_The figure nodded toward her hands, and she looked down, realizing she was holding the two broken pieces of Luke’s lightsaber in her hands – the pieces she had taken apart months ago.  The break was almost clean down the middle, showing the desperate strength of two individuals matched in every way.  It made her chest ache with a longing she thought she had buried, so fast and sudden she brought a hand up as though she could physically tear the pain away._

_“Those questions,” the man said, and it felt significant, like he was responding to her emotions rather than her questions.  “And those that are yet to come.”  He reached out with a black gloved hand, touching her forehead._

               Rey awoke with a start, her chest heaving with a heavy weight.  It felt as though someone had been pressing down, wrapping their hands around her lungs and constricting them.  She reached up, feeling that rift within her.

               The dream rushed back to her, and pain flashed across her mind at the same time.  Rey clutched her head in agony, rolling to the side and facing the dying fire light.  She closed her eyes, filling her lungs with as much air as she could.

               Tatooine.  She needed to get to Tatooine.  Or so the strange man in her dream told her.

               But that didn’t feel like a dream.  It felt like a _vision_ , like she’d had when she’d touched the hand of _him_ in the village on Ahch-To.  A destiny she had to follow, or it would gnaw at her until it consumed her.  Until it broke her.

               Though the last time she’d followed her intuition, she’d ended up stealing an escape pod after breaking her lightsaber in half.

               _But not to me._

She shied away from his empty promises, trying to study the vision in her mind, rather than dwell on the inconsequential thoughts of her past.

               After a moment, the pounding in her head faded into a dull ache, and Rey could take a full breath again, her lungs free of the elastic that had wrapped around them during her sleep.  She relaxed slowly, easing back into a comfortable position, and drifted back to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you guess who visited Rey in her dream?
> 
> (I'm thinking I made it kind of obvious but WhATEVER)
> 
> Please leave any questions you may have in the comments and I'll do my best to answer them!


	5. in which one space nerd is blissfully unaware of what the other space nerd can't stop thinking about

               The sun woke her the next morning, and Rey hopped up, more rested than she’d felt in a long time.  The dream was still there at the forefront of her mind, and she contemplated it as she laced up her boots and rolled up her bedmat.

               The figure in her dream felt oddly familiar.  Like the wisp of a memory, just on the edge of her consciousness, but she couldn’t quite grasp it.  A fruit hanging too high in the tree of her mind.

               She looked at Artoo, still peacefully in low-power mode, and decided to let the droid get some more rest.  She’d eat a light breakfast and make her way to the ship to signal Poe, let him know she might be longer than another two days.

               Hiking slowly through the underbrush, she wondered how in the stars she was supposed to g _et_ to Tatooine.  Leia would deny the trip vehemently, telling her a smuggler’s planet would be full of bounty hunters who would recognize her in an instant.  They probably all had posters of her face up in their ships, after the bounty the First Order put on her head.  The thought was disconcerting.

               But it felt _necessary_ , like she couldn’t begin the next chapter of her life without making that voyage the mysterious man in her vision told her to make.

               Taking a deep breath, she pushed away the thoughts that she was simply going crazy.  The headache pulsed quietly in the back of her mind, reminding her that she was as sane as she could be, given the circumstances.

               Without Artoo bumbling over fallen trees and overgrown roots, the trip back to the ship took half the time as it had the day prior.  She climbed up into the cockpit and turned on the radio, giving it a minute to warm up.  She gave her code word once, waited a few minutes, then gave it again.

               “Yes, sorry, Poe here,” a tired voice came through the comm.  “What’s going on, Rey?  Did you find the tower?”

               “Have you slept yet, Poe?” Rey asked, assuming the answer.  The silence stretched for a beat.

               “I take it you found the tower?”

               “Yes,” Rey sighed.  “There’s been a…bit of a delay, however, in sending out the signal.”  Rey explained the situation, how the tower was most of the way rebuilt, but it’d take an extra couple of days at most to reattach the dish and rewire some of the fuses that were inevitably burnt out from the lightning strike.

               Poe took a deep, slow breath, breathing directly into the comm and making it crackle with static.  “Two days?” he clarified.

               “If it takes longer than that, I’ll let you know,” Rey promised.  Poe agreed, and they cut off the frequency with Rey reminding Poe that he was, in fact, human and not a droid built to run for days at a time.  He bore her no mind, which did not surprise her in the slightest, before ending the transmission.

               Rey climbed back out of the pit and leaned against the metal of the ship.  It was warmed from the sun above, and a light breeze from the ocean tickled the back of her neck, ruffling her hair a bit.

               However much turmoil ran through her mind, this place would always be the peace she sought.  The wind blowing, the sun shining, her thoughts being dragged out to sea with every wave of the ocean.  It reminded her to remain here, in the present, and allow the future to come to her – something she’d been trying to train herself to do since her trip to the Supremacy.

               The trek back to the radio tower took even less time, the path now becoming more known to her.  She powered Artoo back up and told the droid she’d let Poe know they might be a couple extra days.  This came to the great dismay of R2-D2, who did not want to be on this island any longer than necessary, and made such very known.  Rey couldn’t help but laugh, this silly droid making her laugh more these past two days than she had in the past four months.

               The multi-tool Poe had packed came with its own miniature torch, so after they worked a couple hours to secure the last few support beams, Rey sent Artoo back to the control panel to start working out the encryptions that might have been place within the communication bridge.  It whistled as it strode away, far too cocky in its ability to get this done, in its words, “faster than any pathetic human could hope to put a comm tower back together”, which Rey had thrown a rock after it for.

               After she used the Force to set the satellite dish down at the base of the radio tower, Rey tightly secured the rope around it.  She then wrapped the other end of the rope around her waist, making sure to slide each of her thighs through as well.  She needed to be able to lug this thing, which was a comparable weight to her droid companion, up to the top of this fifty-foot tower, and her legs were much, much stronger than her arms.

               She climbed as swiftly as possible, trying not to note the impossible weight dragging behind her.   After expending so much energy using the Force the previous day, she was afraid that she’d be drained far too fast to dip into that reservoir today, and the last thing she needed was to fall off this tower because she’d been too tired to climb down.

               Rey reached the top of the tower and pulled the dish up, grunting as she wrapped the rope around the top-most beam.  Her hands ached as she yanked the rope through, bracing her feet against the side of the tower and using all of her upper body strength to pull the dish up to the top.

               Hoisting herself up, she wrapped her legs securely around the beam, tying the rope around her waist as a bracer.  She used the least amount of Force energy possible to bring the dish up to the top, positioning it within the broken bracket.  Keeping it in place with the Force, she pulled her multi-tool from her hip pouch and ignited the flame of the torch.

               Welding the metal back together was a longer process than she’d thought it would be – the dish was top heavy and kept trying to lean into the warm, malleable metal.  She held the dish in place for a long moment, her muscles aching against the tension.  After a quarter hour, she slowly lowered her hands, and the dish stayed in place.  She quickly reconnected the wires that ran up the length of the tower, twisting the copper in hopes of patching a signal.

               After a moment, she felt the electricity pulse beneath her fingertips.

               With a gratified smile, Rey untied herself from the tower and wrapped her arm-wraps up her hands to avoid slipping off the metal, her hands too saturated with sweat to be trustworthy.

               She swung down the last rung, brushing her hands against the legs of her pants and taking a swig from her canteen.  She felt good, for perhaps the first time in months.  Proud of herself and what she’d accomplished here, alone, between yesterday and today.  She was helping the Resistance, and that was what had been lacking in her life.

               The headache persisted, and the rift in her chest echoed hollowly, and she ignored them both.

               Artoo was working on the control panel, and it whistled dismally as Rey approached.  It told her the connection to the tower was shaky, at best.

               “I’ll bet the fuses shorted out when the lightning struck the tower,” she responded, and Artoo beeped in agreement.  “I’ll go look for the exposed wires and see if it’s not something I can fix.  You stay here and let me know if I get it.”  Artoo whistled, and Rey turned, following the powerline.

               About fifty yards away, Rey found a hatch that opened to expose the wiring within.  There was obvious short-circuiting happening, some of the wires bled open or stripped.  She clicked the multi-tool open and used the pick to wrench some of the lesser-destroyed wires to the side, finding the disconnected wiring.

               Working as quickly as possible, she stripped a couple of the other wires, hoping re-circuiting the wires through a different route would trip the fuse.

               Her fingers were nimble, but the multi-tool slipped, and her reflex to catch it caused her hand to delve a little too deeply into the wiring.  An electric current ran lightning-fast up the length of her arm, causing her to convulse and drop the multi tool completely.  She cried out, more in shock than in pain, and grabbed her wrist as her hand shook with the aftershock.

               Giving herself a moment to calm down, she gritted her teeth, feeling awfully stupid.  “Let’s not do that again,” she said to herself, grabbing the multi-tool once more.

\------------------------------------

               Ren slept very little the night following his meditating and awoke early even for him.  He stared at the floor of his chambers for a long moment, allowing himself to feel the emptiness he so studiously ignored at every turn.  With a resigned sigh, he made his way into the connected ‘fresher, showering quickly.  He stared at himself in the mirror for a long moment, squeezing his fists against the sink and trying desperately to figure out what happened the night before.

               That pull had been stronger and harsher than it had ever been in the past.  His head had flared in pain, so fast and blinding he couldn’t even close his eyes without seeing stars erupt behind them.

               Something was _changing_ , the pull to the scavenger practically screaming rather than the quiet hum it had been in the weeks following Crait.  The headaches were steadily getting worse, as well.

               Distantly, he wondered if the desert rat recognized what was happening, then quickly banished the thoughts.  This was, after all, her fault.  If she was suffering, it was her own doing, and he had no reason to feel sorry for her.

               Ren dressed and made his way out of his quarters.  Unfortunately, he needed to speak to General Hux, and he wasn’t sure if the cur was awake yet.

               He shouldn’t have doubted Hux, who seemingly never rested.  The General was standing on the platform overseeing the Stormtroopers.  He was speaking quietly to an officer, and the two were bent over a datapad the officer was holding.  From the space between them, Ren could barely make out the exoskeleton of the new TIE fighters the Order had commissioned some weeks ago.  He assumed Hux was overseeing the finalization of the new blasters Ren had requested be equipped.

               “Ah, Supreme Leader,” Hux said when he turned to see Ren approaching.  “I was just giving the approval for the commissioned TIE fighters, as you requested.”  Ren had to take a deep breath to steady his nerves.  After the previous night’s happenings, dealing with Hux’s brownnosing was one of the last things he wanted to do.  Despite Hux’s very obvious hatred for him, the man still tried like hell to kiss Ren’s ass.  Ren nodded.

               The officer bowed and quickly made her leave, sending out an approval for the TIE fighters as she went and nearly tripping over her own feet with her attention elsewhere.

               “Have you shipped the volunteers to our benefactors’ systems yet?” Ren asked after a beat of silence.  He couldn’t bear to look at the twisted face of his General, knowing himself well enough to actively avoid anything that might make him angry this day.  Instead, he watched as the Stormtroopers began their morning routines, jogging through the emptied hangar, listening to orders shouted from their superiors.  Ren, not for the first time, realized he’d never have to take orders again if he didn’t want to.  At this point, he was at the top of the food chain.

               Disgust filled him, rather than the pride he was hoping to feel.  No matter how much time passed, there was little change in how he felt about being the Supreme Leader.

               “They’ll ship out day after tomorrow,” Hux responded confidently.  He exuded confidence at almost any given moment.  Hux seldom had a moment of weakness or self-doubt.  Ren hated that about him.

               He let silence permeate the space between them for a long moment.

               “I’ll be taking leave for a few days,” Kylo Ren finally said, and Hux turned to look at him, an exasperated look on his face.  His mouth flapped like a fish for a moment before he managed to compose himself.

               “Supreme Leader, I must disagree with such an act so soon after taking the throne.”  Ren kept his face forward.  “There cannot possibly be anything so important—“

               “I’ve requested a meeting with my Knights,” Ren interjected, taking note once again of Hux’s insubordinate behavior.  To speak out against him was an act of defiance, and Ren was silently tallying each incident.  He just wasn’t sure what number he’d have to get to finally kill him.

               Hux’s mouth was agape, jaw opening and slacking as he struggled to speak.  An argument, he knew, wouldn’t change Ren’s mind, and Hux would never admit it, but as scared as he was of Kylo himself, with his strange and unnatural powers, having all of the Knights together was a far more terrifying experience.

               Ren’s eyes finally flicked to Hux’s face, trying desperately not to laugh at the expression on the General’s face, but a small smirk escaped despite his efforts.  “Unless you’d prefer we meet here, aboard the Ascendancy, so as not to misdirect my attention?”

               “N-No, Supreme Leader,” Hux said, turning to face forward and tucking his hands behind his back, and Ren noticed the break in his voice with an arrogant amount of delight.  “Should we expect you gone for three days?”

               “That should be plenty of time,” Ren responded, turning on his heel.  “Have someone prepare my ship.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woooooooo next chapter is the Knights of Ren.
> 
> All of the KOR are original characters that I designed but I did drop a couple of canon references.
> 
> As always, kudos are very much appreciated and any questions asked in the comments will be answered with the next chapter update.
> 
> xoxo
> 
> I'll probably have the next chapter up in a couple of days because I'm super excited about the next update and where I'm taking you guys.


	6. in which our favorite space nerd/supreme leader goes to visit his grandpappy's castle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, the song Control by Halsey goes really well with this chapter.

               When initially joining the First Order and becoming the disciple of Snoke, Kylo Ren had spent a vast majority of his – extremely limited – free time rifling through the archives of the Empire.  He’d been searching for any and all information he could find about Darth Vader.

               There was a multitude of information, of course.  Most of it, Ren assumed, was incorrect.  According to what he’d found, Anakin Skywalker was killed in the battle at Coruscant.  And it seemed Darth Vader had come out of nowhere for the sole purpose of being the Emperor’s apprentice.

               This was, of course, untrue.

               He’d thumbed through an extensive number of invasion plans and battle routines that Vader was apparently present for.  He’d searched for ages, looking for anything significant that might give Ren a glimmer of his role in all of this.

               For the most part, it seemed Darth Vader led an incredibly boring life.

               Ren could only assume, due to the forged paperwork alluding to Skywalker’s death, that much of Vader’s mission specifications and roles in certain exploits were redacted altogether.  Being the Emperor’s hand probably had the perks of much of his less-than-conventional tactics being swept under the rug.

               However, due to his digging, he had discovered that Vader had a personal temple on a fiery Outer Rim planet called Mustafar.  The significance of building his castle on such an unfortunate planet eluded Ren; he assumed it had something to do with privacy, but the planet was essentially a ball of molten lava and was not comfortable in any sense of the word.

               He knew the Empire had been mining the metal of the planet prior to their rise to power, but Vader had put the order in to stop any and all contracting on the planet’s surface before he’d begun building his castle.

               Upon learning such information, Ren had set out to explore the abandoned castle immediately.  It was snug within a mountain, half of the castle carved into the stone.  The bricks had been reinforced with insulated carbon, keeping the interior of the castle cooled despite the ridiculous heat emitted from the rest of the planet.

               It had gone mostly untouched in the years since Vader had walked the halls – Ren knew his former Master Snoke had made his way here at one point or another, chipping away a small stone of Vader’s legacy and forging a ring.  However, during his exploration, Ren had found his meditation chamber, which was a complete sensory deprivation tank.  He’d found his bacta room, the tech that had been used to allowed Vader to live outside his suit.  Spare parts for the suit were neatly organized in labeled drawers, nutrition packs were stored in a cool, dry pantry off the bacta room.

               It was a fortress of information regarding how Vader lived physically, but the entire castle was devoid of any personal information.

               Ren couldn’t deny his disappointment upon learning that Vader had been without any personal attributes, but he wasn’t surprised.  The Dark Side centered around raw emotions, like anger and hatred – all of these things were internal.  Any external items could have been potentially weaponized and used against him.

               Still, as Ren lowered his Upsilon onto the landing pad, he had to admit that his grandfather had given him an incredible rendezvous point for his Knights to meet a few times every standard year and discuss their latest missions.

               Prior to his demise, Snoke had the Knights going through the galaxy and disposing of anyone who openly spoke out against the First Order.  Ren could assume this was the reason that Leia’s distress signal had gone unanswered – Resistance sympathizers were being assassinated systematically, and word of such spread quickly through the systems.

               Not to mention what happened to the Hosnian system.

               Ren had known for some time that his Knights were disparaging such missions; their skills were best spent elsewhere, not on petty missions to silence those Snoke was in a tizzy about.  He hoped that his takeover of Supreme Leader wouldn’t come with pushback from the Knights of Ren – he was confident in them to a fault and was well aware that their combined forces could end his life.

               Disembarking, Ren made his way swiftly to the castle.  He was not surprised to find that the Knights had yet to arrive, as he hadn’t sent out the transmission for them to meet him here until he had already left the Ascendency.  He had to make sure his radio comms couldn’t be tracked by the First Order; his Knights were _his_ to command, and he had no intention of giving Hux the ability to send them orders.

               Not that they’d listen to that lunatic.  They had more self-respect than that.

               Ren slowed his steps as he entered the castle.  The relief from the heat of the planet was welcome, and the lights buzzed on as he entered – motion activated.  He’d managed to get them in working order the first time he visited, and they’d stayed such with little upkeep since.

               Vader had commissioned himself a very nice castle.  A lot of the technology used to treat his wounds outside the suit was state-of-the-art, tech built and programmed just for Vader himself.  Skywalker had mentioned once, absently, that Anakin spent his free time as a boy tinkering with droids, having built a protocol droid from scratch at an extremely young age.  Ren wouldn’t be surprised if Vader developed the bulk of this technology himself, if that were the case.

               Ren ran his gloved fingertips along the top of the meditation chamber, his cloak billowing behind him with every step he took.  He had wondered endlessly how much time Vader spent within these walls, what it was like for him to walk the illustrious halls he’d designed himself.  With the absence of personal quarters, and the extent to which he’d been damaged, Ren imagined Vader slept within this meditation chamber, if he was able to sleep at all.

               For as little as Ren was sure Vader used of this place, it was incredibly expansive.  The mass of the castle took up a good portion of the mountain it was built into.

               Appearances, he surmised.  Darth Vader was very good at being the incredibly terrifying leader of the galaxy – if any of his officers felt it necessary to disturb his personal time on his personal planet, Vader would make sure it would be their last visit.  An intimidation tactic.

               The halls were barren and tiled black, the lights above reflecting on the smoothly polished surface.  Ren’s cloak kicked up dust and a small amount of ash that managed to filter itself through the crevices of the castle as he walked toward the conference room off the dining chamber.  Or, the room Ren assumed was the dining chamber – it held no table or chairs.  Based on the nutrient packs he found, he figured Vader probably couldn’t eat solid food, and instead had his essentials directly injected into his suit to sustain himself.

               The conference room consisted of a long obsidian oval table.  It had ten matching obsidian chairs, the eleventh being a larger, much more imposing chair made of metal and black leather.  Vader’s chair, probably, as it sat at the head of the table.  The twelfth chair was obsidian as well, and sat opposite of the head, but the design was much more intricate and comfortable.  Ren assumed that they didn’t hold many conferences here, as Darth Vader seemed to be a very private man, but he’d had a chair made for the emperor, just in case.

               The thought made him uncomfortable.  He knew if Snoke had ever come here to meet with the Knights of Ren, rather than calling them to his ship, he would have sat where Ren now settled, at the head of the table, forcing Ren to either take the emperor’s chair or one of the matching obsidian ones.

               This chair belonged to Darth Vader, though; his by birthright, and yet another thing Snoke could have so easily taken from him.  It makes him angry to think about, and Ren takes a slow, deep breath, trying to rid himself of the thought.

               Snoke is dead.  Kylo Ren is the Supreme Leader.

               Once again, the thought fills him with more dread than it does pride, and Ren leans back in the chair, closing his eyes and willing his mind to meditate instead.

               As he sat there, waiting for his Knights, he grew increasingly drowsier.  The headache slowly ebbed its way into his conscious mind, and he opened his eyes, feeling the weight of his eyelids, the amount of willpower it took to keep them open.

               His initial thought was that the previous night of restlessness was catching up to him, but he’d gone many nights without sleep and never felt quite like this.

               This was a familiar feeling, but in his hazy, sleep-deprived mind, he couldn’t quite figure out where he’d felt this exhaustion before.  He searched the edge of his memories, delving deeper than he normally went, until he found something from his youth.

               This was how he felt when he was a padawan at Skywalker’s Jedi temple, and he snuck out in the middle of the night to practice the Force training they’d been taught earlier that day; Force manipulation on inanimate objects.  He’d gone on for hours, lifting heavier and heavier objects until he could hardly stand.  As soon as he turned around to go back to his private hut, he’d collapsed, falling asleep in the middle of the field.  One of the other padawans woke him up the next morning, shaking his shoulder awake with concern.  He hadn’t moved an inch the entire night.

               But such a case was impossible; he’d hardly used the Force at all today, and he was far beyond over-exerting himself in such a manner.  Force manipulation came as naturally to him as breathing anymore, and lifting heavy objects was hardly a chore.  Skywalker had taken him aside the following day and taught him an important lesson; there was a correct and incorrect way to use the Force.  Bending it to your will would only leave you drained; you must let the Force do its bidding with as little manipulation as possible by urging it to _see_ your intent.

               As soon as he’d learned, he’d never had another problem like this.

               What in the stars could this be, then?

               He shook himself out of the stupor when the sound of a ship landing on the pad outside the castle reached his ears.  He needed to prepare himself to see his Knights, who he’d been out of touch with since the events on Takodana.  It was strange – as soon as his attention was diverted, the exhaustion fell off him like a cloak, and he realized all at once what had happened.

               This feeling did not belong to him.

               The realization came just as one of his Knights entered the conference room, and Kylo Ren stood to greet her, compartmentalizing his thoughts so this faded into the background and he could focus on the task at hand.

               “Kerran,” Ren greeted, gesturing in greeting to his first Knights’ entrance and keeping his eyes trained on the door for the next.

               “Kylo,” Kerran responded, her voice muffled by the black mask she wore.  She took the chair just to his right as Ren heard another ship landing outside.  “Nice to finally see you.”

               “It’s been too long,” Ren agreed.  A couple of other Knights filed in, and Ren nodded to each of them, greeting them by name.  Each Knight stood behind their chair at the conference table, waiting for the rest to make their way inside.

               “Ah,” the next Knight said, and Ren had to stop himself from rolling his eyes.  “ _Supreme Leader_ , how wonderful of you to grace us with your presence.”  The man bowed, much lower than necessary, sweeping his arms in a gesture of grandeur.

               “Jayce,” Ren responded, quirking an eyebrow and nodding toward him.  It was a greeting, and Ren had to stop himself from spitting the name.  “I appreciate your being punctual, for once.”

               “Well how could I miss the opportunity to spend as much time as possible with the new Supreme Leader?” Jayce asked, and Ren was happy the Knight still wore his mask – he didn’t want to see the smug smile on Jayce’s face.  “Plus, it’s been far too long since you’ve summoned us, Master.”  The word was a stab at Snoke’s title for Ren – he’d not joined the ranks of the Knights with the intention of becoming their master.  It was a competition upon their arrival and commitment to the Dark Side.

               Kylo Ren just happened to win.

               “It has been a hectic time, as I’m sure you can imagine.”  Ren turned his attention to the last two Knights as they filed in, bowing in greeting before gesturing for them to take their seats.

               At one point, there were fourteen Knights.  Many of them had been personal guards for Snoke, long before the Praetorian guard and the arrival and indoctrination of Luke Skywalker’s padawans.

               Though there was no proof, Ren had reason to assume Snoke had ordered his former guard killed.  He’d not trained them, groomed them the way he had Ben Solo, and Ren was certain Snoke’s fear laid in the fact that his former knights could overthrow him, if they’d been inclined.

               He took in the six masked faces around him for a moment before taking his own seat at the head of the table.

               “There’s no need for such formalities,” Ren said, and there was a slight shift in tone within the conference room as each Knight lifted their arms to remove their helmets.

               “Where’s your mask?” the oldest member of his Knights – the only remaining member of the Originals, a burly Cerean man named Geryn – asked.

               Ren considered giving them a tastefully edited explanation of the destruction of his own mask, then decided against it.  “I see no reason to hide my face any longer.  My deeds as the Supreme Leader will be known throughout the galaxy regardless of the exposure of my face.”

               “Plus, you can’t keep that delicious scar hidden,” Jayce piped up, and Ren threw him a glance.  “Looks like you got into a lightsaber duel, eh, Kylo?  Finally face off against old man Skywalker?”

               “I did,” Ren responded, trying to re-accustom himself to Jayce’s outspoken personality.  They’d not inhabited the same room in what felt like a lifetime, though it was only six or so standard months.  So much had changed since then, both outside and within himself.

               Each of the Knights leaned forward, anxious to hear the story of Ren finally defeating Luke Skywalker.

               Another edited version of the truth ran through his mind, and he gritted his teeth against it.  These were his Knights – he had no reason to hide behind ruses.  Each and every one of them had been subject to Snoke’s manipulation and torture methods.  And each of them, save for Geryn, had been through Skywalker’s padawan training.

               “I met up with Skywalker on Crait while chasing the Resistance and the scavenger who murdered Snoke,” Ren said after a moment.  He took a breath to steady himself.  “But it turned out to be a doppelgänger, designed to distract me while the remaining Resistance fleet fled the planet.”  There was a murmur of disbelief.  As far as any of them knew, the act of projecting a doppelgänger was only a theory, never actually practiced.

               “So, what happened?” Kerran asked, leaning her body forward and propping her hand up under her chin, eyes wide with interest.  She was engrossed in the story.  Almost as much of a brownnoser as Hux, but not nearly as annoying.  She was a smart, cunning Togruta aged nearly five years beyond Ren, but she still looked every bit a teenager, with deep white lines etched into her sharp red face.

               “The energy it took to project himself for as long as he did caused Skywalker to pass into the Force,” Ren answered, leaning back in his chair.  Though he’d fallen for the trick, he still got a small amount of satisfaction every time he mentioned Skywalker’s demise.

               “But the Resistance made it out?” another Knight, a dark-toned man with gray eyes and white hair named Urtey, asked.

               “All forty of them,” Ren admitted, albeit a little sarcastically.  “Hux managed to take out a vast majority of the fleet after they jumped ship and attempted to escape on transports.”

               “Wait, back up a bit,” Jayce interrupted in shock.  “The girl with the bounty on her head for Snoke’s murder, she was a scavenger?”

               “From the desert planet Jakku,” Ren finished, not really wanting to discuss the scavenger.  Though, he never wanted to discuss the scavenger.

               “I figured she was a Jedi,” Jayce responded, leaning back in his chair and lacing his fingers across his stomach.  “That makes this much more interesting.”

               “She is a Jedi,” Ren stated, and attention was shifted back to him.  “Or at least, she believes she is.  The only pupil Skywalker took on after the destruction of the temple.”  A smirk flashed across his mouth, and the other Knights were shocked – if there was one thing Kylo Ren never did, it was smile.  “As far as I know, she trained all of three days with Skywalker before he died.”

               “You’ve fought her though,” Geryn spoke up.  Ren hadn’t heard him talk this much in ages – he wondered if it was because of Snoke’s death.  The man was nearly impossible to read.  Was he angry that the former Supreme Leader was dead?  Or did he, like Ren and he suspected most of his Knights, feel the relief of not having the disfigured alien of a man breathing down their necks at every turn?  “That’s where you got the scar.”

               “Yes,” Ren agreed, a little reluctantly.  “She somehow came into possession of an old lightsaber and was able to hold her own against me after I got shot with a bowcaster.”  Admitting his weaknesses was not something Ren did lightly and talking about his failures with his Knights only seemed to make them more real and vital.  He’d let the scavenger escape too many times.

               “How did you survive a bowcaster shot?” Kerran asked with wide eyes.

               Ren explained an overview of the events leading up to his confrontation with the scavenger and her traitor Stormtrooper friend on Starkiller.  He mentioned absently that the girl was incredibly attuned to the Force for having so little training, though left out the bond between them and Snoke’s hypothesis that she was Ren’s equal in the light.  That information felt too intimate to share with his soldiers.

               After catching them up with his failures, each of the Knights debriefed Ren on their missions and the success rates – as well as whatever it was Snoke was hoping to get out of their extended absences among the ranks.  Though Ren knew this was the way Hux preferred it – keeping his Knights out of the First Order bases.  The little man was awfully afraid of what a group of seven Force users was capable of.

               “I imagine you didn’t drag us to this stars-forsaken planet for all this idle chit-chat, Kylo,” Jayce finally said.  “But I can only hope the new Supreme Leader might have a little bit more of an interesting mission for us than murdering traitors?”

               “I believe so,” Ren agreed, expelling the deep breath taken after Jayce interrupted the sentence that would have led them into this very conversation.  At the Jedi Temple Skywalker had built, Jayce – then Jayson Naberrie from Naboo – had been Ben Solo’s very best friend.  He’d been the first on the scene after Skywalker had attempted to murder Ben in his sleep, taking everything Ben had said at face value and agreeing to follow him to where the voices in his mind were telling him to go.  He’d seen Ben’s power from the beginning and was awed by his seemingly natural capabilities with the Force.  Jayson would have followed Ben to the ends of the galaxy.

               As they’d aged, pledged themselves to Snoke and the Knights of Ren, battled alongside and against each other, their relationship had changed drastically.  Ren could only wonder if envy was the driving wedge between them, but none of that mattered anymore.  He’d grown up tremendously these years since leaving the temple and had severed his ties with any of his attachments.

               Jayson’s aloof and condescending personality that Ben had admired so much – as he’d always had to present himself as royalty as a child – had become the very thing that Kylo Ren despised in Jayce.

               “Yes, I have what I think may be an interesting challenge for you all,” Ren finally said, taking the time to look each of them in the eye.  “You can each go your own ways or traverse the galaxy together – I’ve no real preference for how you get the job done.”

               “What is it?” the Knight that called himself Yavin asked.  He’d chosen that name as a sort of revenge tactic against the New Republic.  He’d been born on Yavin 4 after the battle that had taken place there altered the course of the Empire.  Apparently, it was the fault of the New Republic that his family had been impoverished, and that his mother had perished.  The name was a reminder of his struggles as an adolescent.

               Ren folded his hands beneath his chin, another smirk stretching across his face.

               “I want to build an army.”

 xxx

               The Knights left Mustafar only a few hours later – as eager as Ren expected them to be, given the mission he’d assigned.  He thought about returning to the Ascendancy, but he’d told Hux to give him a few days, and he was enjoying the vacation away from the Order – as much of a vacation as one could take, anyway, given he was on a lava planet surrounded by the empty walls of his dead ancestor’s castle.

               He took the lift in the castle up to the top floor and wandered through the halls a bit.  The landing pad, conference room, and meditation chamber were all nestled in the bottom of the castle.  Up here, at the top, was Vader’s communication chamber and projector room.  Ren had spent a lot of time in this area, searching through Vader’s personal archives, but there was nothing different within his own records than what was in the Empire’s.  He’d found some encrypted files in the holo projector, but he’d not been able to figure out how to open those.

               The mystery taunted him.

               Though it was unlikely, he tortured himself with the thought that those encrypted files were the missing scraps of the million-piece puzzle he’d been attempting to put together for the better part of a decade.

               Stepping outside, he walked across a bridge, some of the older concrete beneath his boots crumbling.  The bridge dropped off into the depths of a lava pit some hundred feet below, but it was as wide as his Upsilon, and the foundation was still sound.

               The blackened dirt crunched as he stepped onto it, taking a few strides away from the castle and staring out over the vast emptiness of the planet.  It was completely barren, void of any life, save for the rumbling of lava at the base of the planet.

               He wondered once more what possessed his grandfather to build his base in such a place.  This was not a planet strong with the Force – there was no life from which to draw its energy.

               Ren had scouted the planet when he’d first learned of it, looking for anything that might be an indication to the reasoning, but there was nothing.

               Just another mystery left unsolved.

               He considered searching the Force again, looking for the signature he’d been chasing since he’d learned of Vader, but after what happened last night he thought better of it.  The last thing he needed was to have this space invaded by the scavenger; he was afraid that, if the pull was strong enough, her walls would crumble and she’d be before him once more.

               He took perch on a boulder and watched the lava as it cascaded like a river a few yards away.  There were better ways than this he could have been spending his time.  Ren knew that.

               But for as much time as he was allotted, he wanted to forget about that weight on his shoulders – the weight that came with organizing and running a galaxy.

               His Knights were off on their mission.  The Order was being overseen by the capable – albeit exasperating – General Hux.

               For the first time in a while, Ren felt that he could breathe.

               He wanted to think about nothing, but that was an impossible feat when not meditating.

               His thoughts quickly drifted to the scavenger, and this time, he didn’t thrust them to the side.  He let the images of her he kept stored in his mind wash over him – her, wet and shivering, curled up in a blanket when their minds had bridged and she didn’t push him away for once; her, staring up at him as the lift took them up to Snoke’s throne room and insisting she could help him; her, with her back to him, a feral animal with her lightsaber, her weight leaned against him as she kicked out against a guard’s chest.  He thought of before, when he’d been overcome with that Force exhaustion.  There was no doubt in his mind that he was, somehow, through the bond he thought had been closed, _feeling_ what the scavenger was feeling.

               He shook his head, closing his eyes.  None of this made any sense.  The scavenger had effectively shut him out – he could feel the icy steel of her doors that barricaded her mind from his.  And every time he thought of it, the headache bounced to the forefront of his mind, making itself as known as it could.  Alerting him that this was not, in fact, supposed to be how things were supposed to go.

               She should have taken his hand.

               The thought makes him grit his teeth and fist his hands against his thighs.  Standing, he paces along the edge of the lava river.

               He had no need for her to be beside him.  His equal in light – her rise to power would never have been seamless.  She was too good, too pure; there would have been an uproar from his military, from his Knights.  They would have most likely called him out for choosing a Jedi over the Dark Side and attempted to overthrow him.

However, he had mapped it all out.  He would have disbanded the First Order for her, built something _new_ , disregarded a totalitarian society for something more democratic for them to oversee together.  He would have made his Knights bow before her.  He wanted that.  He wanted to tear apart the inner workings of the military; after all, it meant very little to him.  He’d been the apprentice of Snoke, not a devout member of the First Order.  And now Snoke was dead, and there were so many _opportunities_ before them.  The idea began unfurling as they stood together in that throne room.

               And he couldn’t make her see what was so blaringly obvious to him.

               She would have been the mother of a new society.  Something altogether different; not the Order, not the Republic.  He knew the inner workings of both, and he could take pieces from each and stitch them together into something stronger and _better_.

               She’d not seen any of it.  She’d only seen his hand as an extension of the Dark Side.

               After he’d thought about it, upon abandoning Crait when he had a free moment to heal, he realized to turn her wasn’t what he’d wanted.  The scavenger was, admittedly, strong and steadfast.  She didn’t break under pressure.  She was the calm to his turmoil.

               His equal.

               He wanted to keep that version of her by his side.

               But she was mostly untrained, no longer under the disastrous tutelage of Skywalker.  Ren knew he could best her in a fight if they ever came to face off.

               He _had_ to best her in a fight, once he found her.

               He had to destroy her.

               That was the only way he felt he’d truly be free.

               He’d come up with this resolve a hundred times over the past four months since she’d shut the door on him, but every time, no matter how sure he was that this was the answer, it felt wrong.

 xxx

               Eventually, Ren made his way back into the castle, pulling up his datapad to see if there were any updates about the whereabouts of the remaining Resistance.  As he expected, they were quiet.  The forty leftover members had become ghosts – they’d not caused any disasters, not done anything to cause anyone to blink twice and involve the First Order.

               He knew their supplies had to be most of the way depleted.  There was no way they’d made it to an uncharted system as weighed down as they were on the rust bucket that was the Millennium Falcon.   Literally the most recognizable ship in the galaxy, and the only ship they had at their disposal, as far as the Order knew.

               So how in the stars had it not been spotted?

               Ren could only assume they’d found another form of transportation.  He knew the pilot he’d captured what felt like ages ago and the scavenger were both well-versed in reading ship engines.  He wouldn’t be surprised if their combined efforts had rebuilt some other old junker of a ship.

               It was possible that they’d never touched ground at all.

               All of his musings were what-ifs, and he was tired of not having any concrete amount of information.  As much as he told Hux not to focus on the Resistance, the fact that they’d not been completely destroyed coupled with the fact that they were being led by General Organa was concerning.  Though her distress call had gone unanswered, Ren knew Leia well enough to know that there was always another card up her sleeve.

               It also concerned him that there had yet to be an update on the scavenger.  Her face was plastered at every bounty zone and in every ship – she’d become somewhat of a competition amongst the more daring hunters.  The prize on her head was monumental, and a bounty hunter would be able to retire if they brought her back to the Order.

               But the bounty comms had been relatively silent regarding her.  There were possible sightings, but none of them every panned out – Ren imagined that a number of innocent girls across the galaxy had been murdered for simply bearing resemblance to the girl.

               That was the concern of the General, though.  Ren knew better.

               She’d not be caught by some bounty hunter.  She had lived the vast majority of her life in the harsh deserts of Jakku, fighting for her life and her food.  He imagined by now she had repaired her lightsaber, as well.  She’d not be taken out by some huntsman with a gun.

               Even Kylo Ren had more faith in her than that; the girl was incredibly tactical and cunning.  It was why he’d not deterred Hux’s insistence that they put such a price on her head.

               And if someone did manage to kill her, well, it was just one more thing crossed off Ren’s to-do list.

               He rifled through his datapad for some time, reading transmissions between his Order officers, when a startlingly heavy flash of electricity ran up the entire length of his arm, from his fingertips to his shoulder.  Ren gasped, dropping the datapad as his arm convulsed from the shock.  His fingers shook harshly for a moment before the current settled, and he stared at his hand in disbelief.

               He picked up his datapad and inspected it thoroughly, but there was no way it had been the source of such a sensation.  It felt as though he’d dipped his hand into a bucket of live wires.

               All at once, the headache he’d done well to ignore most of the day blasted across his head like a ship jumping to light speed.  It blinded him momentarily, and he shut his eyes against the suddenly blinding lights overhead.

               He kept his eyes shut as he knelt on the ground, waiting for any amount of reprieve.  For a brief moment, he thought about crawling into Vader’s meditation chamber, but something about that felt incredibly intrusive.

               After a few moments, the pain lessened, and Ren opened his eyes slowly.  The lights were still overbearingly bright, but they didn’t destroy his vision as completely as they had moments before.

               He stumbled out of the castle and toward his Upsilon, running an uncertain hand through his hair.  He knew the ship would be dark if he willed it that way, and if he didn’t take hyperspace he’d be back at the Ascendancy by tomorrow.

               He would have time to be in the darkness.

               He took to the cock pit and began the lift-off process, punching in the Ascendancy, before taking another long moment to look at the arm that had been run through with electricity.

               Something had definitely changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright! So, as I said previously, the KOR are all original characters and whatnot (though there's some pretty obvious canon easter eggs in there). I read somewhere that they were an established group prior to the indoctrination of Luke's Padawans, though I'm not sure if it's accurate. Still, it's something interesting I decided to explore, however briefly. The idea that Snoke used Force-users as bodyguards before coming across Ben Solo in the Force.
> 
> I'm fairly certain Snoke had no idea of Ben's lineage prior to the announcement made by that snippy Senator during Bloodline, but he'd been in Ben's head for years, so it's safe to assume that Ben's obsession with Darth Vader probably stems from Snoke's worship. (I mean, come on? Who goes to some gross lava planet and makes a gaudy ring out of a rock you found there if you're not deifying the person who lived there?)
> 
> Like, you find this Force fledgling as some sort of vessel for light-and-dark side promise, get in their head because man, you want this kid to be your main bodyguard/bottom bitch, and then you find out that he's the grandkid of your favorite Darksider? Dream come true for ol' Snokey.
> 
> I don't touch on it much in the fic, but that's my point of view as to why Ben was sought after and ultimately turned by Snoke. I can almost guarantee that Ben's argument with the Dark Side wasn't as apparent until after his lineage connection to Vader was revealed, and by that point something that was maybe years in the making on Snoke's side was an absolute necessity. Instead of being like "Yeah Dark Side let's go" Snoke changed his tune to, "Listen, I've been in your head for years, I'm actually your grandfather, and you need to defect and come to me for proper training."
> 
> This is all an assumption, and a poor one at that, but I think it explains Ben's point of view pretty well.
> 
> I appreciate kudos so much! You're all wonderful and I can't believe this fic has as much traction as it does!
> 
> Any questions in the comments will be answered during the next chapter update.
> 
> Thank you!


	7. in which a space nerd watches some holos about some dead guy and jimmy-rigs her ship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, Do You Feel It? by Chaos Chaos pairs nicely with this chapter.

               Rey managed to get a slightly stronger signal connected through to the radio tower, but the sun had begun setting and she lost the necessary light to make sure she was transplanting the correct wires and not potentially setting the control panel on fire.  She told Artoo they’d try again tomorrow, and they turned in for the night.

               Her arm felt funny as she lay down on her bedmat after a meal.  It tingled sporadically, twitching, though the current should have long since worn out of her system.

               The headache had flared back to life in the early evening, as well, but she was content that it had held off for as long as it did.  They’d gotten quite a bit of work done.

               Artoo had told her on the walk back that disengaging any possible Empire encryptions shouldn’t take more than another day, which brought them a day short of their two-day requested extension.

               She’d work all day tomorrow on rerouting the wires if she had to.  Getting a strong, fast signal out was critical – it was the only reason she was here, and she was desperate to do something right within the Resistance.

               After her strange vision, she’d wrapped up the pieces of the lightsaber and tucked them to the bottom of her bag.  If the answers she sought for putting it back together were on Tatooine, she had no desire to muss up anything else and further destroy her chances of having the weapon working again.

               Lying there for a couple of hours, Rey realized that sleep had no intention of coming to her easily this evening.  She sighed, sitting up and staring at the dying fire.  Her head ached greatly, but she stood up, grabbing a couple of logs and adding them to the fire.

               These nights spent under the stars, isolated on this planet felt like somewhat of a vacation, though she’d been working every day.  The base felt suffocating, to a point.  And knowing she couldn’t go anywhere only made things worse.

               She lay back down, sighing again.  She was grounded.  How in the stars was she supposed to get to Tatooine when she had no access permitting her leave from atmo?

               Unless…

               She stood up once more, the idea coming to her in increments.  She grabbed the thick branch of a tree from her pile of wood and wrapped her arm bands around one end, using it to make a torch.  She needed to light her way through the forest.

               The walk took slightly longer in the darkness, as she kept her eyes on her feet to make sure they didn’t trip over anything.  She found the beach about half an hour later and walked quickly over to her X-Wing, plunging the torch fire-side up into the sand.

               The moons above gave off little light, and she needed to see the underbelly of the ship.

               Grabbing the multi tool, she unscrewed the bolts from a panel.  It dropped into the sand with a diluted _plunk_ , and she pulled the torch closer, inspecting the now-exposed control panel.

               There was no possible way Poe wouldn’t inspect it once she got back to make sure she hadn’t knocked anything loose in her short voyage.  But if he were distracted, or out on a mission, he’d not have time to do so the day she got back.

               And Poe had been extremely distracted lately.

               If she got caught, she’d lie her way out of it – they had no reason not to believe her.  Rey had been extremely good at keeping her head down and her mouth shut ever since Leia opened up the slightest about her fear of losing her.

               But for now, this was her best shot.

               She rifled through the control panel until she found what she was looking for.  Poe had attached a small device to her X-Wing – a pressure stabilizer that would prevent her ship from going into hyperspace.  She knew he’d done it more for the ship than to keep her grounded.  This thing was old enough that it might fall apart if she took it to light speed.

               But it was her only shot.

               She removed the stabilizer and the small homing beacon he’d attached to every ship, carefully wrapping them up and putting them in the back of the cargo hold.  If she left them on the island and they went through tracked ships for whatever reason, they’d know something was up.  She just had to remember to get rid of them before she left for Tatooine.

               Because, come hell or high water, she was going to Tatooine.

 xxx

               Rey spent the rest of the night working on the X-Wing.  She had no parts to update it with, but she was able to use some metal she found from a discarded bunker to reinforce the engine space and the undercarriage.  The last thing she needed was panels falling out under her feet.

               She got into the clearing just as Artoo woke himself up from low power mode, and they set off to their respective posts and got to work.

               Her mind was a million light years away, thinking of what she might find on the desert planet her vision was sending her to.  Answers, the man had said.  Answers to what, exactly?

               That night, sitting around the fire, she suddenly remembered what else the man had said; Artoo had answers to the questions she’d been asking.  But she had no idea what questions he could have meant?

               “Artoo,” Rey began, wracking her brain for any sort of indication of what he could have been talking about.  She blurted out the first thing that came to mind.  “Do you know how to rebuild a lightsaber?”

               The droid beeped a negative response, then asked her curiously why she wanted to know.  She barked a laugh before digging through her duffel and pulling out the pieces of her saber.  “I’ve been working on this thing for months and I have no idea what I’m doing.”  She laid the pieces on the ground for the droid to inspect, and he studied them for a long moment before whistling a melancholy tune.

               “Do you know this lightsaber?” Rey asked.  The droid beeped his affirmative, and Rey suddenly remembered what Leia had told her; she’d found holos in Artoo’s archives of Anakin Skywalker.  “It belonged to Master Anakin.  You knew him, didn’t you?”

               Artoo confirmed her question, and Rey’s eyes grew wide.  “Can you show him to me?”

               The droid looked at her for a long moment, and Rey felt the weight of its stare.  If a droid could at all be incredulous…

               Suddenly, it whirred and beeped in rapid succession, powering on the holo-projector and casting a blue light against the backdrop of the dark forest.

               Artoo showed an impossibly young boy with light hair and bright eyes, wearing tattered clothes as he sat upon what looked like a counter in a junk shop.  He kicked his legs back and forth, looking curiously straight into the holo, so Rey assumed he’d been staring at the droid.

               “He’s much younger than I imagined,” Rey said, mostly to herself, and the droid whistled, indicating that this was merely the first encounter.  Rey nodded, watching as the young boy’s attention was diverted toward something else.

               Artoo expanded the holo, broadening the panel, to show a young girl.  She was only slightly older than Anakin, but beautiful all the same.  Long, dark hair draped in intricate braids down her back.  She had wide, inquisitive eyes that reminded her of someone, though she couldn’t quite put her finger on whom.

               “I was glad to have met you, Anakin,” the girl said, and her voice was light and whimsical.  Anakin watched her as she left, with a tall, older man and some type of bipedal alien creature Rey had no name for.

               The projection shifted, and they were suddenly in a different room.  That same older man and creature were there, along with an older woman, sitting beside the young Anakin, who was again watching the young girl with curious eyes.  Artoo flipped again, showing Anakin as he proudly announced that he’d built the protocol droid on his work bench himself.  After a moment, Rey realized it was C-3PO, without all his protective casing.

               “I didn’t know Anakin built Threepio,” Rey commented, but she didn’t hear Artoo’s response.  She was wrapped up in the story unfolding before her.  Artoo ran through the details of Anakin’s life – his young interactions with the girl, who Rey found out was Padme, Leia and Luke’s mother.  The droid showed her Anakin’s pod racing, how the Jedi Master that found him bartered for Anakin’s freedom.

               The events slowly built up.  Artoo showed her Qui-Gon’s funeral, how his apprentice, a padawan named Obi-Wan (she pretended that namesake didn’t stab her) took over Anakin’s training.  The story progressed, and Artoo remained next to Anakin as he grew and changed, going from young boy to young man.  Rey made a comment about the strange hairstyle the padawans wore, and Artoo made a beep that could only have been the droid version of laughing.

               Ten years passed, and Anakin was grown, before Padme re-entered the story.  Between Anakin’s training and various exploits, Rey had nearly forgotten about her.  She’d grown, filling out, from a fourteen-year-old queen to a regal senator.  Anakin watched her carefully, his eyes betraying an emotion Rey recognized but refused to acknowledge, because she’d seen it before, in the eyes of someone else.

               The relationship in the holo blossomed into something beautiful and innocent, and it made Rey’s heart swell.

               They went to Tatooine together, and Rey watched in horror as Anakin lost his mother.  She watched his turmoil and heard his confession of despondency and hatred.  She watched him break apart, watched as Padme helped him put the pieces of himself back together.

               Artoo showed a bit of the battle on Geonosis before skipping to the private ceremony held on the balcony of Padme’s Naboo home, as they joined their union.  It was beautifully intimate, and the dress Padme wore had to be the most intricate thing Rey had ever seen.  She noted absently that, though she’d not seen how it happened, Anakin was suddenly missing the same hand Luke had lost.

               They kissed, a desperate moment so full of love that Rey had to look away, a blush creeping over her cheeks.

               The tide shifted, and Anakin became a full Jedi.  She watched in fascination as he took on his own padawan, a Togruta named Ahsoka.  She laughed when they butted heads and watched as Anakin’s faith in his padawan increased over time.  He believed in her so much.

               Then the moment ended, and Ahsoka was framed for treason and cast out.  Anakin was so rightfully full of rage, of the Jedi Council not bothering to look further into the incident, that he solved the mystery himself.  She felt his disappointment and acceptance when Ahsoka refused to return to the Council, no longer trusting her future there, which only confirmed Anakin’s waning trust in them as well.

               Rey watched all of those stolen moments with Padme, as beautiful as they were sad.  Because no matter what they did or what they said, Rey knew the truth of the ending.

               She watched the manipulation of Chancellor Palpatine, as well, wishing she could throw herself into the screen and scream at Anakin not to listen.  From the outside, it all seemed so obvious to her.  But she can imagine, given what she’d seen so far of his life, how easy it would be to blame the Jedi for his pain and anger – in his shoes, she imagined she’d have done the same thing.

               Padme’s belly began to swell with their child as Artoo flipped through the holos, until he projected a fiery scene that made Rey’s breath catch in her throat.  Anakin, rushing out to hold his wife.  A hushed conversation she could barely hear.  Watching Padme’s face turn from fear to disbelief.

               _“I am more powerful than the Chancellor, I can overthrow him!”_ Anakin insisted as Padme watched, her eyes widening with denial.  _“And together, you and I can rule the galaxy.”_

               Rey felt her intake of breath, saw more of their surroundings, and she felt like she almost recognized the place in Artoo’s projection.

               Padme backed away, shaking her head.  _“I don’t believe what I’m hearing.  Obi-Wan was right.”_   Rey felt a small stab in her chest.

               _“I don’t want to hear any more about Obi-Wan,”_ Anakin deadpanned, his voice changing from insistent to angry.  _“The Jedi turned against me, don’t you turn against me.”_

 _“I don’t know you anymore,”_ Padme cried, her eyes welling with tears.  _“Anakin, you’re breaking my heart.  You’re going down a path I can’t follow!”_   Rey felt her own eyes prickling, and she rubbed them quickly, trying to disperse her emotions.

               _“Because of Obi-Wan,”_ Anakin responded, his attention suddenly diverted to a place Rey couldn’t see.

               _“Because of what you’ve done!  What you plan to do!”_ Padme countered, but Anakin’s attention was still off, staring in the distance.   Rey saw the resolve set in his jaw.  _“Stop!  Stop now, come back!  I love you!”_   Her voice cracked with grief as Anakin took a step around her, toward whatever it was he’d been staring at.

               He finally looked at her, his eyes narrowed in anger and distrust, and Rey could swear she saw them change color, for the briefest moment.  It was awful, having to watch his emotions splayed out like this, so tumultuous and raw.  _“Liar!”_ he shouted, and Padme looked between him and the figure entering Artoo’s peripheral.  The bearded Jedi, Obi-Wan; Anakin’s master.

               Rey could see that Padme had no idea he’d been aboard her ship, but Anakin was too lost in his own rage.

               He brought his hand up, and she and Padme cried out _“No!”_ together, Rey reaching as though she could stop it from happening.  A situation more than fifty years removed.  Padme’s voice cut off with a choke as Anakin used the Force to restrict her air flow.

               Rey watched in horror as Padme fell limp to the ground.

               _“You turned her against me!”_ Anakin shouted, pointing an accusatory hand toward Obi-Wan, who had remained calm.  Rey could _feel_ Anakin’s terrifying power through the holo, could see the rage and hatred conflicting behind his eyes.  Her heart twisted, filling her throat with agony, and the headache drummed hard and fast in her mind.

               Their lightsabers ignited, and Artoo cut the scene to a med bay.  Obi-Wan stood next to a tall, proud man with dark hair, and they watched as the droids worked on a delirious Padme.  They prepped her to give birth, and Artoo shut the projection down just as Rey heard the cries of an infant.

               The tears she’d been trying so hard to suppress had spilled over, leaving tracks down her dirty cheeks.  She’d not expected Artoo to show her all of that – all of that beauty and happiness, coupled with the anger and betrayal and rage.

               The figure in her vision was right – Artoo had held some of the answers she’d been seeking.  She wanted to know more about Anakin Skywalker’s life, and now she knew all of it.  But it had opened the door to more questions, as well.

               And, despite her best efforts, she couldn’t help but recognize the differences between Anakin and his grandson.  Anakin was raw, absolutely.  His emotions bled out, filling the space around him and sucking it all in like a black hole.  He’d been abrasive and emboldened.  Even in his tender moments with Padme, he’d presented all of that emotion.

               She swallowed a lump in her throat and forced herself to think his name.

               Ben Solo – her chest constricted, and the rift within it widened – was passionate, but he did not drown in his emotions the way Anakin seemed to.  In their moments together, he’d been temperamental, absolutely, but he’d maintained his composure for the most part.

               Whereas Anakin’s feelings were a hurricane, Ben’s were a rainstorm.  Unexpected flashes of lightning lit up his sky, but he was otherwise consistent.  She wondered when the last time was that he’d seen the sun.

               Artoo looked at her, beeping solemnly, and Rey shook her head. “No, that wasn’t too much.  It’s just…quite a bit to process right now.”  The droid beeped, and Rey nodded her agreement.  Artoo echoed what Leia had said before, when Rey had asked about Anakin.

               “He was a good man,” she agreed.

 xxx

               Artoo went to sleep not much later, leaving Rey lying on her back with only her thoughts and her headache.

               For once, she wasn’t casting aside any thoughts of Ben Solo, allowing them to seep into her mind like water into dry dirt.  She’d not allowed herself to think of him in the months since Crait.  But she’d spent so much time actively trying to _not_ think of him that he’d never really left her mind to begin with.

               The chasm in her chest echoed hollowly as she finally allowed herself to feel his absence.  The cage around her mind had forcefully kept him out, but it pained her when she wondered if he’d reached out to her at all in their time apart.  She was the embodiment of a double standard.

               On Takodana, when Finn admitted to being a rogue Stormtrooper, he told her that she’d looked at him in a way no one ever had.  At the time, she hadn’t understood what he meant, though she had an idea.  He’d been brainwashed his entire life, so she doubted that anyone ever gave him a smile or a warm look.

               It wasn’t until that day on Ahch-To, when they’d come together in the hut after she found the darkness of the island, that Finn’s words truly resonated with her.  She’d seen it in the way Ben’s eyes reflected a thousand emotions; longing, uncertainty, fascination, fear, a slew of others.  But he’d reached for her anyway – he’d trusted her.  And then she’d seen his future in her mind, and that look made sense.

               He’d given it to her again, in the throne room, when he’d pleaded with her to join him.  She wondered idly if she’d ever get the chance to tell him just how difficult it was to say no.  If she’d had another moment to think about it without the Resistance being obliterated behind her, she would have said yes.  She knew she would have.

               And the final time, when he’d looked up at her as she loaded the remaining members of the Resistance onto the Falcon.  Her hand shook as it hovered over button to raise the ramp.  She’d wanted to run to him, find him within the walls of that destroyed Rebel base, but she knew she was needed here first; Chewie wouldn’t leave without her.

               She wanted to see that look again.  It tore at her.  His brown eyes were depthless and swam with every emotion she could name.  She could see him within those eyes – _him,_ Ben, not Kylo Ren.  The man he was meant to be, rather than the monster he tried so desperately to become.

               That was why Padme’s eyes had looked so familiar to her, she realized with a start.  They were the same as Leia’s; the same as Ben’s.

               She could barely admit to herself that she was terrified.  Terrified that he’d never look at her that way again.  That his face, his _eyes_ , would be an emotionless mask, so cut off from her that it’d be no different if he wore the black mask of Kylo Ren.

               Her chest ached with a longing she’d never fully admitted to having.  It was _painful_ to be away from him, to be disconnected from him.  And she’d been trying so hard to fill that void within her with other remedial tasks, but it was like throwing pebbles into a canyon.

               He was her equal in the darkness, and that thought should have scared her, but all it did was make her want to understand.  He was this intricately ornate stained-glass puzzle, and she had yet to figure out how all the pieces fit together.

               She was too afraid to break them.

               Rey took a deep breath.  Snoke had said that she was the light, rising up to meet the darkness of Kylo Ren.  But _why?_   Why her?  Why now?  And the bond they’d shared, the bridging of their minds that Snoke took claim over, but she knew that to be wrong.  What had brought that about?  She felt the pull, the strangely unsettling missing piece, calling to its other half in her mind that day he rifled through her brain on Starkiller.

               They’d done something then, when they’d entered each other’s minds.  When they’d found all of those deep, intimate secrets.

               The darkness rises, and the light to meet it.

               But Rey had reached out – she’d touched that darkness, both within Ben and within the island, and it hadn’t consumed her the way Luke feared it might.  Her manipulation over the darkness was haphazard at best, but she knew it wouldn’t take her the way it’d taken Anakin.  She trusted herself more than that.

               She remembered the conflict she felt within Ben, his constant fighting against the light as he pulled himself, tooth and nail, into that darkness.

               But it hadn’t taken him either.

               All at once, it hit her, and she sat up, making her head spin and the headache scream in agony within her mind.

               She knew, without a doubt, that the darkness couldn’t consume her, and that no matter how hard he tried, it wouldn’t consume Ben either.

               Luke had yelled at her to return to the light, but she didn’t feel that it was _necessary_ , because while the darkness had called to her, it hadn’t tried to infiltrate her.  Luke wasn’t afraid for her, he was afraid for his own light, being corrupted by that darkness.  Because that was the Skywalker way.

               Anakin, and then Ben, or so Luke thought.

               But if she could manipulate the darkness, then maybe Ben could…

               She felt like an idiot for not realizing sooner.

               That was why Ben was so conflicted – he felt the pull to the light, and he was afraid he’d become immersed in it, but perhaps that was never supposed to be.  Perhaps he was meant to be balanced, just as she was.  Her equal in darkness, as she was his equal in light.

               Darkness without light is an empty void, and light without darkness doesn’t exist.  You can’t step into the light without casting a shadow.

               Her body thrummed with truth and life and _Force_ , and she knew all at once that she was headed down the right path.  She had no idea where it would lead her, but she knew right then what she needed to do.

               She had so many more questions now, but she knew someone who might have some answers.

               Nervous that he hated her, Rey took a slow, deep breath.  Then another.  And another.  She wrung her hands together, trying to calm her mind wracked with nerves and anxiousness and fear.  She stood, trying to steady her erratic heart, and threw another log onto the fire.  She rehearsed in her mind what she wanted to say, but nothing sounded right.

               For whatever reason, _“Sorry I ignored you for months after abandoning you in the Throne Room with the decapitated body of your evil former master”_ didn’t seem as genuine as she had hoped.

               She sank back down onto her bedmat and thought about doing it tomorrow, and the headache pulsed, as if it were angry.  With an audible sigh, she resigned herself to hopefully figuring out the words later.

               Closing her eyes, Rey allowed herself to reach out for the first time in months.  She found the wall she’d used to so completely shut Ben out, and pushed against it, wedging open a steel door with a wooden pick.  Met with only her own resistance at first, before something within her sang with rightness.

               And, like a rubber band snapping back into place after being stretched far too thin, the headache she’d felt for months dispersed, and she was transported halfway across the galaxy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second chapter in as many days, because I know a lot of you are getting antsy about what's coming.
> 
> Someone literally said "I want reylo, ben needs to stop trying to kill rey already" and I laughed so hard I nearly cried.
> 
> When I tagged this as a slow burn, I really and truly meant it. I'm a writer, and I focus quite a bit on world-building (I think it makes the story more genuine. Plus I'm all about torturing my readers.)
> 
> Anyway, to answer your questions:  
> "When will Rey and Kylo see each other again?" - Just one more update away, I promise! And things really pick up after that, as well (but in Microsoft Word, you guys are only 44 pages into a fic that I've written more than 250 pages of, SOOOOO).
> 
> "Build an army of what? Force-sensitive children or volunteer soldiers for the Knights?" - You'll find out eventually, but I don't want to give anything away.
> 
> "Encrypted files found on the holo-projector: did he take them with him, or try and open them? What's inside of them?" - When Ben first found Mustafar he attempted to hack Vader's personal archives to no avail - it's a familial trait. That'll actually come back around much later.
> 
> "Exhaustion and headaches caused by the bond?" (and the follow up) "Why did Kylo feel the electricity in his arm? Is the Force zapping him for thinking about Rey's death, or for daring him to think that when it has an agenda for Rey and Kylo?" - Yeah okay this is a little bit more complicated to explain, let me attempt my head space here. So while I'll explain this in-fic later, basically yes, yes, and no. Closing the bond has caused Rey to exude an incredible amount of energy, which is causing a mutual headache between both her and Ben. However, because the Force is probably a little more than pissed at her for trying to buffer its will, it's evolving to make them experience each other's pain and shortcomings. So when Rey exhausted herself using the Force, Ben was subject to that exhaustion. And when Rey shocked herself working on the transformer, Ben felt that, as well. If Everyone's Favorite Supreme Leader did more to hurt himself, Rey would feel that, too. But he's awfully careful these days.
> 
> As always, if you have any questions, I'll answer them next update! Til then, kudos are very much appreciated! Thank you!


	8. in which everyone's favorite space nerds finally talk and it doesn't exactly go well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, Haunting by Halsey goes great with this chapter.

The Upsilon thrummed beneath him as Ren flew through the galaxy on autopilot.  It was a soothing sound, keeping him grounded.  He did not meditate, afraid of what he might find within the web of the Force, but he tried desperately to keep all thoughts away.

If only he could be rid of this damn headache.

He sat in the darkness of his personal chambers aboard the ship, back leaned up against the frame of the cot he kept here.  He was afraid that if he sat on something more comfortable than the cold metal of the floor, he’d fall asleep.  And something within him was urging him to stay awake.

Not that he really slept anymore anyway.

Pressing the palms of his hands against his eyes, galaxies of color erupted behind the pressure of his hands, bright whites and purples and greens becoming starburst behind closed lids.  Something about it was oddly soothing, as though forcibly rubbing his eyes was a comforting gesture.

One leg stretched out before him, the other bent up with his head resting against his knee.  He kept his eyes closed, listening to the engine of the ship as it propelled him through different systems.  He was peaceful, for once.

A familiar sensation crept up the back of his neck, and his eyes snapped open, searching through the darkness for a desperate moment.  He Forced the lights a bit brighter, searching for her, but she didn’t appear.  The headache was singing in his mind, bristling angrily with the absence of _her_ , and Ren scoffed to himself.  Of course, she wasn’t here.

He tilted his head back against his bedframe and looked at the ceiling.  It glistened metallic against the dim lighting of his room, fake and unfeeling, and there was a metaphor for that in his mind that he refused to acknowledge.

That gnawing was back in his head, and he closed his eyes, frustrated.  She wasn’t _here,_ wasn’t going to magically appear before him after months of silence.  Of course not.

Of course…

Then, all at once, the headache disappeared, and the empty part of his mind was suddenly full and aware of _her_ , of the scavenger, sitting a few feet in front of him with her legs tucked beneath her body.  Her eyes were wide with shock and disbelief, and she stared at him like a child who’d just been caught stealing dessert before dinner.

He felt as though his expression mirrored hers, though he couldn’t be sure.

Ren’s voice caught in his throat, too wrapped up in her sudden and unexpected manifestation in his room.  After a long, tense moment, his body sucked in a lungful of air and he realized he’d forgotten to breathe.

That breath seemed to snap the girl out of her own stupefaction, and she brought a hand up, reaching as though to make sure he was actually there.  She thought better of it after a moment, and her hand returned to her lap, casting her eyes down.

Ren took that moment to look her over.  She looked paler than when he’d last seen her, like she hadn’t seen as much sun as her skin normally did.  The freckles that dusted her nose and cheeks were mostly absent, though that could have been the lighting.  Her hair was down, brushing the tops of her collarbones – that image ignited something within him that he struggled to bury – with a single braid wrapped around one side of her head.  Her eyelashes brushed her cheeks as she looked down, and he could see even from that point just how deep the circles beneath her eyes ran.

She looked like she’d gotten about as much sleep as he had over these months.

Finally, she looked to him again, making sure he was still before her.  He hadn’t moved, of course – unsure of what to do.  Half of him wanted to reach out, take her in his arms, and simply _touch_ her to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating.

That was Ben Solo’s half.

The other half wanted to scream, to summon his lightsaber from where he left it on his desk and slice through the image of her, make her disappear again.  Knowing full well the headache would return, despite his mind currently singing from the freedom, he wanted her gone.

That was the other half of him.  The Kylo Ren half.

He noticed that her hands shook where she had them fisted against her thighs, but she didn’t take her eyes off his.  Her full lips parted, taking in a shaky breath.

“Ben…”  It sounded like music when she said his name like that.  Like it was the most natural word in the galaxy to her – like she’d been whispering it her entire life.  But he detected the aching crack in her voice, as well, and he felt himself tense.

“What are you doing here?” he asked coldly, his body stiffening against the flurry of emotions.  The half of him that was Ben Solo was trying to scream to attract the girl’s attention, and the other half of him was trying desperately to break that part of him down.  She recoiled, as though pained by his question, like she wasn’t expecting it, and her eyes cast down again.

“I-I...” she stuttered, her eyebrows scrunching like she couldn’t find the right words.  “It…felt right.  Felt like the right time.”

“The right time?” Ren scoffed, pulling away from where he had been unconsciously leaning toward her.  “Months later?”

She pulled back again, daring a glance at him, and sighed thoughtfully, but the words were stuck in her throat, and Ren felt himself growing angry.

“Are you here to beg me to turn to the light, scavenger?” he spat the word like a curse, making her flinch, but she didn’t look at him.  “Or was it a more selfish reason?  I imagine the headaches got to be too much for you?”

That made her look up, and she swallowed, her eyes wide.  “How did you…?  Did you get them, too?”  Ren was taken aback by that question.  How did she not know?  He quickly steeled himself, making sure his expression was as blank as the wall behind him.  Her eyes caught him turning his emotions off, and she looked, downcast.

“Surely, you’re intelligent enough to realize that the Force wouldn’t allow you to close this connection without some type of repercussion,” he said, meaning to phrase it like a question, but he was too indignant.

She clenched her teeth.  “Well, seeing as how I’ve had all of two days training in the ways of the Force, you’ll have to forgive my naivety during such a situation.”  She was mirroring his anger.

“I offered to teach you,” he rebutted, and her eyes flashed up, anger swirling within them.  She stared hard at him for a moment before closing her eyes, pulling in a deep breath.  When they reopened, they’d softened to the same warm hazel he’d seen in the throne room.

“Stoic,” she murmured, and his eyebrows came together in confusion.  “Just like I thought.”  Ren didn’t respond, unsure of what she was trying to get at.  She took a long, slow breath, and a small smile curled on her lips; her expression tore something inside of him wide open.  It was not a happy smile.  “You do hate me,” she finally said.

This was something she’d decided long before she came to him, he could tell by the resolve in the statement, and the thought made him ache with feelings he didn’t know he could still feel.  Was that why she’d stayed away for so long?  Fear that he hated her?

He remained expressionless as these questions circled his mind.  It would be easier for her to believe such; perhaps they could sever this connection if they _did_ hate one another.  But the thought made him sick.

"I don’t hate you,” he finally responded, desperate to say _I nothing you_ after, to drive the point home and make her stay away, but the words got stuck behind the barrier of his teeth and slid down the back of his throat, leaving a sour taste in his mouth.

She met his eyes once more, that sad smile still in place, and a new, fresh wound ripped open within his chest, joining the dozens of others that he’d come to feel since he met her on Takodana.

“Don’t you?”

And Kylo Ren was alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's only been a couple of days but I figure people probably wanna know what happened when Rey finally decided to reopen the bond. If it's any consolation, the next time they talk it goes much better. This is a short chapter for that reason.
> 
> Questions:  
> "Did Rey realize her headaches were caused by closing the bond with Kylo?" Nah but she knows now, and she feels awful.
> 
> As always, kudos are for sure appreciated and make me wanna post faster (unashamed). Any questions will be answered with the following story update!


	9. in which one space nerd propositions the other one because what else would she do?

Ren stopped to refill his fuel reservoir – unnecessarily; he had plenty of fuel to make it back to the Ascendancy.  He was desperate to take time, to _think_ , and the cold metal walls of his Upsilon had begun to feel like they were closing in around him, though he’d never been claustrophobic.  He had no reprieve with meditating, either; every time, her Force signature stuck out like a lighthouse on a foggy shore.

It had only been half of a standard day, but the hours had dragged on for millennia.  He thought briefly about reaching back out to her, to see if he could bridge the connection himself, but he couldn’t bring himself to let her know he wanted to talk.

Instead, his fists had found the walls of his cargo hold, pounding into them over and over until his gloves were ripped and his knuckles bleeding and the wall had a groove so deep the metal panels buckled.

He wrapped a couple of bacta patches around his hands, discarding his gloves in the bin, and set a course for the nearest inhabited planet.  He didn’t even care what planet it was.

Anywhere was better than the confines of his ship.

The ground beneath him was gravelly, crunching beneath his boots.  It was night on this planet, and it didn’t seem to be under First Order occupation – he would have seen a banner or a station on one of the moons.

He wasn’t really even sure what system he was in.

The nearest town was only a few hundred meters – he’d landed in the hopes of remaining inconspicuous and had no quarrels with walking.  It gave him the time he desperately needed to think.

The scavenger believed he hated her.

He wanted the thought to be a relief.  He’d been trying so desperately to make _himself_ believe he hated her; if she already believed, well, that was just one less thing on his to-do list.  Instead, the thought made him cringe unpleasantly, like he’d reached out to touch a flame and was surprised when it burned him.

And the way she’d looked at him.  Those sad, dejected hazel eyes wouldn’t leave him in peace for even a moment.  They haunted him.  _She_ haunted him.

The mystery of why she’d reached out to him remained unclear, and the more he thought about it, the more anxious it made him.  Was she just trying to confirm his hatred for her?  Or did she want to torment him, the way her very existence tormented him?  Reflecting back on the situation, she had seemed like she’d wanted to say more than the Force had given them time for.

Possible explanations rolled in his mind, but none of them seemed plausible.  She’d cut him off for months; there was no way she’d been trying to mend bridges.

Something had happened, something he hadn’t allowed her to explain.  That was the only thing that made sense.

With the possibilities fresh in his mind, he wandered into the town.  None of the shops were open, due to the late hour, which was all the better for him.  He walked to the nearest fuel shop and glanced around, making sure he was alone in the square, before bending the Force to his will.  The lock within the shop clicked, and the door opened.

Why he was bothering to break in and steal fuel he had no need for was beyond him, but he stepped into the shop nonetheless.  Desperate, perhaps, for a distraction.

Ren slipped inside.  The shop was small and dusty, with old, siphoned ship parts cluttering then floor-to-ceiling shelves.  A disarray of tables pushed together advertised newer parts, and Ren looked around for a moment.  He figured that most of the items here were probably stolen or bought from a scavenger for an extremely low price.

The thought of scavenging made his thoughts wander back to the girl, and he grunted in displeasure as he rifled through ship parts.  He didn’t need any of these items, but he was attempting to put them together in his mind, to make a functional ship.

It was something, anyway.

He found the fuel preserves behind the counter and grabbed a couple just as the door to the shop flew open.  Ren straightened his back with the stolen goods in his arms, readying to put them down and face the intruder.  This wasn’t his shop, but he had no real intention of letting anyone else steal from these people, either.

His fingers twitched toward his lightsaber, and he turned, his robes fluttering behind him in a swirl.  He met the wide, terrified eyes of a young, dirty child, perhaps eight or nine years old.  The young boy stared up at him in undeniable fear, his eyes flitting between Ren’s face, the fuel in his arms, and the weapon on his hip.  Ren’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly in surprise.

The boy’s Force was pulsating with fear and adrenaline, probably from being caught breaking into the shop.  Ren focused a bit, digging around softly in the boy’s brain, and saw a much older man, hacking on a dirty cot, becoming smaller and smaller by the day, unable to keep food down.  He saw the plan to rob this store – just as Ren thought, it was owned by junkers – to pay for the next few months’ of medicine.

Ren had no sympathy.  People died every day, and they were of no concern to him.  He looked away, stepping from behind the counter and walking back toward the door.

The young boy quickly stepped out of the way, but Ren stopped just short of brushing past him, looking down once more to meet those wide, scared eyes.

They were a little bit too dark, a little bit too round, but something within them reminded him of _her_ , and he wondered, if she were in this situation, what she might do when confronted with such a challenge.

The boy’s heart was beating erratically, his breathing labored as his hands shook.  Without really thinking about it too hard, Ren reached into his belt pouch and pulled out a handful of coins and bills, holding them out for the boy.  Somehow, his eyes widened even more, looking like they were about to pop out of his head, and he cupped his ridiculously tiny hands beneath Ren’s huge one.  The coins clattered as they fell into the boy’s palms.

There were more credits in this boy’s hands than he’d probably ever seen in his young life.  The fear had turned to awe, as though he just realized he was in the presence of someone of great importance.

Ren held the door, and the boy stared in disbelief, eyes darting between Ren and the credits.  Once the realization that this was happening set in, and that he should go before the generous stranger changed his mind, the boy dipped his waist in a deep, respectful bow, before running out the door and down the dark road.

Ren closed the door behind them, making sure the lock was back in place.

The bond buzzed to life in his mind as he trekked through the forest, and Ren stopped dead in his tracks.  He turned around, and there she was.  She was clipping a duffel together, and she glanced at him from the corner of her eye.

“I didn’t think I’d see you again,” she commented.  She seemed distracted, much less the melancholy version of herself he’d seen the last time.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he replied, his thoughts on the boy he’d just given more than two thousand credits to for no reason other than he reminded Ren of this girl.  Could that very thought have been the reason they’d bridged just now?  She continued shoving materials into her hip pouch, though Ren couldn’t see what or where she was grabbing them from.  After a moment of silence and realizing that the Force wasn’t going to end this, he sighed.  “Going somewhere?”

“As a matter of fact, I am, so I apologize,” she said, and Ren was surprised at the sincerity in her voice, “but I can’t really talk right now.”

“Resistance mission?” he guessed, and she laughed, loud and hard, finally looking at him full on.  Her eyes caught the two fuel reserves in his arm but didn’t make a comment.  She never missed a detail, he knew that much about her.

“Personal, rather than business, I’m afraid,” she replied.  It was surprisingly easy, this banter, he noted with a light tone of dismay.  “I’ve been grounded in the months since your First Order put that ridiculous bounty on my head.”  Something about the way she said it stung, and he cringed, having to stop himself from apologizing to her.

“That’s the best way for them to keep track of you,” he acknowledged with a nod, and she scowled at him.  “How do you plan on getting away?”  Knowing what he did about General Organa, she would never allow anyone important to her to put their lives in unnecessary danger.  That person would have eyes on them at all times.

“I’ve got a trick or two up my sleeve,” she responded mischievously, and the glint in her eye almost made him smile.  Something stopped her hunt for supplies, and she looked at him, eyes wide with an idea.  “Where are you?” she asked after a moment.  Ren scoffed.

“Do you really believe I’d—“

“No,” she interrupted, shaking her head with a smile.  “You’d never let me know, because you’d figure I was to send the Resistance after you.  It was a silly question.”  She took a deep, slow breath, clasping her hands together and wringing them.

They stared at each other for a long moment.  He had no idea what to say – she was absolutely right.  He didn’t trust her enough not to tell the Resistance where he was, not that he’d be on this planet for another hour, so it truly was a silly question.

“I’m going to Tatooine,” she finally said, and Ren couldn’t help but startle.  Was she kriffing insane?

“Alone?”

“No one else would go with me,” she shrugged.  “Not that I had any intention of telling anyone.”

“You’ll be killed within a day,” he said coldly.  “Tatooine is full of bounty hunters gunning for your life.”  She looked up at him, and that same mischievous glint was in her eye.  A smile played on her lips.

“Then I suppose you should come join me.”

\---------------------------------------

Surprisingly, Rey’s plan had gone off much the way she had hoped.  Poe was off on a mission when she docked, half of the Resistance too distracted to really acknowledge her completion of rebuilding the radio tower.

Artoo had reminded her before they left to grab the control panel, and she lugged the heavy, oddly-shaped mass from the hangar to the control room of the base, depositing it for Leia and Connix to swoon over.  They congratulated her on a job well done, and Leia’s eyes had lit up when they connected the control panel to a power source and found that Rey’s message had been both received and responded to.  She caught them up on what she thought had happened to the tower and why it had taken an extra day to complete.  She feigned exhaustion, letting them know she appreciated her work before leaving the room with Leia in tow.

“Something within you has changed,” Leia commented as Rey made her way back to her own chambers, ready to shower and wash her clothes.  It was strange to her, how quickly she’d grown accustomed to being _clean,_ after spending so many consecutive days dirty on Jakku.  Rey stopped in her tracks.  The headache had dispersed as soon as she’d reached out to Ben and had not returned, and the relief was so overwhelming she nearly cried.

The reopening of the bond had relaxed her so thoroughly she’d actually slept, better than she had in months.  It was so natural, she couldn’t believe she’d denied herself feeling right for as long as she did.

But hindsight was twenty-twenty, and the relief came with the guilt.  She believed Ben to hate her, though the Force tugged harshly against the back of her head every time she thought it, trying to disagree with her.

Could Leia, the Force-sensitive sister of her Jedi master and mother to the strongest man in the galaxy, sense that within her?

“I-I…asked Artoo about Anakin,” she said, hoping the hesitation in her voice could pass for guilt rather than lying.  Leia grew quiet, thinking.

“And he showed you…?”

“Everything,” Rey responded with a sigh.  Leia nodded.

“It is a lot to take in,” she acknowledged, and Rey nearly sighed in relief.  “But I assume you understand Darth Vader better now?”  Rey had the suspicion Leia was referring to more than one person.

“Though it doesn’t forgive what he did, I understand the spiral that led him to such decisions.”  Leia nodded her agreement, and they stopped outside Rey’s bedroom door.

“Your arm wraps are missing,” Leia noted with mild interest, and Rey looked down at her unusually bare arms.  She laughed nervously, running her hands over the exposed skin.

“I forgot something back at the ship the first night and Artoo had powered down.  I used them to make a torch.”  It scared her how easily the lies were coming now.  Leia appraised her, a small smile cracking over her worn features.

 “I’ll let you get cleaned up,” Leia said after a moment, departing slowly.  Rey watched her back retreating for a minute before ducking under her door.

She took a deep breath, fearing Leia would somehow figure out her plan to get to Tatooine, before tossing her duffel to the ground.  She knelt down, rifling through it and taking out the unnecessary items.  The pieces of her saber, as well as the homing beacon and pressure stabilizer, were nestled in the bottom of her bag.  She took the two pieces of her ship out and left them on her desk, then thought better of it and tucked them under her cot.

The ‘fresher was incredible after so many days spent outside.  She stayed beneath the stream of water for so long that her clothes had finished their cycle in the steam cleaner.  She felt renewed when she finally emerged.  Like she’d shed her skin, rather than just an outer layer of dirt.

She towel-dried her hair, wiping the steam off the mirror.  She noted absently that her skin had paled considerably in the months she’d spent indoors or under nightfall.  She didn’t feel as strong, anymore, either, despite the hours she spent practicing with her quarterstaff.

There was a difference between practice and implementation.

She dressed slowly, taking a few moments to breathe.  Her mind was running at light speed, blowing through thought after thought – of Ben, of Anakin, of ways this could go wrong, of Leia, of Tatooine, of Luke, of the Force.

Mostly of Ben, though she tries to stifle those.

Her visions surged to the forefront of her mind – both the one she had just a few days ago and the one she had when she initially touched the Skywalker lightsaber.  Each time, the Force was trying to tell her something, but she was too blind to really _see_ , and she didn’t have the information she needed.

A knock on her door startled her out of her own mind, and she took a half-second to collect herself before she used the Force to open the door.

“Rey,” Finn breathed, charging into the room before she had a real moment to process him.  It’d been weeks since he’d left for his mission, and she blinked in surprise as he embraced her in one of his warm, solid hugs.  She inhaled the familiar scent of him, her mind finally catching up to her actual happenings rather than being wrapped up in her head, and she returned his embrace.

“You’re alright?” he asked, eyes wide as he pulled away from her.  She laughed, genuinely laughed.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” she asked, and he returned her smile.

“It freaked me out a little when I got back yesterday, and you weren’t here.”  She laughed again, patting his cheek in a friendly manner before walking back to the ‘fresher room.

“Got too used to me being here all the time?” she asked, and he blew out a sigh as he sat on her cot.  She hesitated for a moment, but he stretched his legs out, and she breathed a sigh of relief.  He couldn’t feel the ship parts she’d hidden there.

“I suppose,” he said tiredly, suppressing a yawn.  They’d grown remarkably comfortable with one another over these months since she’d found them on Crait.  In the beginning, they’d gone on every mission together, his cunning mixing well with her strength and Poe’s charm, making for a devastating team.

The First Order bounty had put an end to that, and they’d split Poe and Finn up on missions to balance the odds of success.

Rey braided her hair back and walked back into her room, leaning against the door frame of the ‘fresher as Finn laid his head back on her cot.

“Tired?” she asked after a moment, and he peeked an eye up at her.

“Nope,” he shook his head, and she laughed, walking back over to the duffel she’d left in the middle of the floor and pulling out the dirty linens and bedmat, walking them into the steam cleaner.  He watched her as she went through the motions of putting back the things she’d need to recollect for her mission to Tatooine.

“I miss having you out there with me,” Finn said after a beat of comfortable silence.  She sighed, her shoulders sagging as she turned the duffel inside out, getting all of the loose dirt and sand out of the bottom.

“It’s not as if I chose to be here day in and day out,” she said, a little irritated by his brash statement.  As though she didn’t feel bad enough having to ignore the ache in her gut every time a ship departed without her.

“I know, I’m sorry,” he apologized quickly.  “How did the radio tower mission go?”

“Uneventfully,” she said quickly, knowing he’d believe her.  “Minor repairs on a broken tower and, of course, having to deal with R2-D2’s constant badgering.”  They laughed together, and she switched the subject to his mission.  He excitedly went into detail about infiltrating a First Order-occupied system to discuss gaining the support of a Resistance-sympathizer planet.  He knew there would be more negotiating, particularly with Leia, but they’d softened the impact quite a bit, finding out the real reason the distress call amongst their alliances had gone unanswered.

“They didn’t know Starkiller was destroyed,” he said, and Rey felt her eyes widen with understanding.  Of course, none of those systems wanted to end up like Hosnian Prime.

“News doesn’t travel terribly fast amongst the galaxy,” she said unnecessarily, and Finn nodded, standing up in excitement to talk about all of the information he’d learned that he’d had to debrief Leia on yesterday.

“We have more sympathizers out there now that Snoke was dispatched by the last Jedi,” he said conspiratorially, and Rey shook her head.

“I’m no Jedi,” she replied.  “I don’t even have a lightsaber.”  _And I didn’t kill Snoke_ , she thought, though she could never admit to this.  No one would believe her if she said that Kylo Ren killed his own master to save her.

Because it hadn’t been Kylo Ren.

“Not yet,” he replied quickly and confidently, continuing his story and making Rey smile.  He believed so much in her.  A pang in her chest made her once again remember that she was essentially abandoning him with no explanation, but she kept her face jubilant as he got more in-depth with his story.

They talked for a few hours before making their way to the mess hall.  They’d made something hot and delicious, some tender meat native to the planet filled Rey’s tray, alongside a purplish vegetable and a large hunk of bread.  Rey sat next to Finn as she ate, greedily stuffing as much of the food as she could into each bite.

She’d never grow accustomed to not having to fight for food.

Rose sat down across from Finn, smiling at Rey before she and Finn engaged in a conversation about past events they’d experienced together.  Rey smiled along but could not relate.

As soon as she finished her food, she made like she was exhausted from her trip and excused herself to her chambers.

It was only a couple of hours until the rest of the base would slow for the night, so Rey decided to bide her time, sitting down and cracking open one of the Jedi texts she’d taken from Ahch-To.  Upon thumbing through them when they’d first settled in to the base and realizing none of them had any information regarding rebuilding a lightsaber, she had cast them aside, frustrated, and every time she tried to read one, the headache she’d been ignoring always came to life.

Now, though, blissfully freed from her headache, she gave the entirety of her attention to the book before her, reading the old text carefully so as not to rip the ancient pages.

She slammed it shut after about an hour, frustrated once more for an entirely different reason.  Despite knowing that these books contained a wealth of knowledge and some answers she most surely needed, they were _incredibly_ boring.  The articles she’d managed to scrape through were all about the principles of the Jedi – using the Force only for good, maintaining peace, having no connections.

She leaned her head back in her desk chair.  None of it seemed to apply anymore – all of the teachings seemed primitive and outdated.  The Jedi’s insistence that they not forge connections was exactly what had created Darth Vader.  Emotions were a necessity, the turmoil helped you find the balance within yourself.  And it was awfully funny that the books insisted the Jedi be peace keepers when Rey knew full well they’d headed an army in the Clone Wars.

It’s like everything she read was juxtaposition to everything she’d seen.  And it was infuriating, the contrasts.  How was she supposed to understand her place in all of this if she couldn’t even make sense of what any of this _was_?

She heard the lights turning off outside of her door, and she waited a quarter hour for everyone to retire to their rooms.  It was another quarter hour before she stood, gathering her duffel from its spot on the shelf above her bed.  She grabbed the lightsaber pieces first, making sure they had a place at the bottom of her bag.  The bedmat she’d rolled up after washing, along with the linens.  Her fire starter, the multi-tool.  She had an extra pair of arm bands that she’d secured to her skin earlier while talking to Finn, but she made sure to grab a spare shirt from her drawer – the sleep shirt she didn’t use – just in case she needed to use something to make a torch again.

Just as she was cinching her duffel shut, she felt that familiar pull in her mind that bridged her to Ben.  His back was to her for a moment, but she could tell that he knew she was there.

He turned around, caught her eye, and she tried desperately to remain relaxed.  Their conversation started off awkward, but as it progressed, it became more natural.  She didn’t think he’d care that she was off to Tatooine on her own, but the slight edge to his voice gave his true feelings away, and she couldn’t help but smile.  Then, an idea struck her like lightning, and she knew all at once what she must do.

“Then I suppose you should come join me,” she said, all of the confidence in the world that he would say yes.  Or, if he didn’t respond, she’d find him there anyway.

He stared at her for a moment.   Then two.  Then three.  The silence stretching to the point that she began feeling uncomfortable and scrutinized.  Like maybe she’d made a mistake.  As he stared, an unreadable look in his eye, she started hoping the Force would end the connection.  But he stayed in her chambers no matter how much she willed him away.  Finally, she looked away, unable to take the silence any longer; busying herself by pulling the stabilizer and beacon from under her cot and setting them carefully on her desk.

She couldn’t help herself.  The opportunity to see him again, see him in the flesh, was _right there_.  And despite her shutting him out for as long as she did, despite the anger she was sure he felt, she wasn’t willing to pass up such an opportunity.  As much as she hated herself for it every other day, she missed him.  He was the only other person in the galaxy who understood what she was going through.  He’d seen into her mind, felt her emotions, her fear, her loneliness, and they both found a companion within those.

Plus, it wasn’t a conflict of interest for either of them – she knew he’d never give away any First Order information to her, just as he knew she’d never give up the location of the Resistance base.  Tatooine was neutral ground for them to talk, to _really_ talk, as they hadn’t had the opportunity to do even once yet since Ahch-To.

“You’re asking me to join you on Tatooine,” he deadpanned, and Rey nearly laughed.  A slight giggle escaped at the sheer absurdity of this entire situation, and he quirked an eyebrow as she straightened her expression, turning to meet him full-on once more.  She couldn’t explain why this was a comical scenario, but everything about this evening felt surreal.  There was no way it was actually happening, right?  She was dreaming.

“Why not?” she shrugged, feeling much bolder than she had the right to.  “At least then _you_ can kill me, instead of having to pay that ridiculous sum to a bounty hunter.”  She’d meant it as a joke, but the way his face contorted, even slightly, made her want to shove those words right back into her mouth.  The guilt of shutting down this bond hit her full-force again, and she inhaled sharply at the unexpected pang; guilt for the pain she’d caused him, guilt for the unending torment of the headache.

Ben took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose with the hand that wasn’t holding fuel reserves, and she noted that it must be a habit she’d never gotten to see.  It caused that ache in her chest to echo with its empty caverns, and she wondered how many other personality quips he had that she might never get to see.

“Why Tatooine?  What’s there that’s so important, you’d abandon your Resistance and steal a ship just to get there?”

_You, hopefully,_ she caught herself, then shook the intrusive thought from her head.  “Answers, I believe.”  She went through a quick overview of the vision she’d had with him, and his eyes narrowed in confusion.

“So, you’re off to some planet you’ve never been to before just because you had a dream tell you to go there?”  His tone was mocking, but she could hear the genuine disbelief beneath it, and she chuckled.

“Like you’ve never done anything because something in your mind told you to do it,” she joked, but his face fell just the slightest amount, and Rey realized she’d unintentionally struck a nerve.  He had that mask in place again, but she was starting to realize that she could see through it, if she looked closely enough.  She took a step toward him, then another, and he eyed her carefully as she closed the distance between them.  There was barely any space between the fabrics of their clothes.

Her hand twitched forward, desperate to reach out, to feel his skin, but she held back.  Instead, she looked up at him, realizing not for the first time just how much taller he was than her.  He took up so much space, making her feel smaller than she was.

“I am asking you to join me because it feels…right.  It feels like you should be there.”  She caught his eyes as they glanced down at the fuel reserves in his arm, and she wondered about that for a beat.  Then, he looked into her eyes again, and she was relieved to see that his eyes weren’t as cold as she was afraid they’d be.  The brown swam with emotion, though not as many as he’d shown her in the past; like water interrupted by glaciers.

She wondered, quite suddenly, if this was how he had felt when he reached for her after the battle aboard the Supremacy and asked her to join him.

He took a shaky breath, and she felt the unevenness of it wash over her face, a breeze in a bunker of a room.  She wanted desperately to know what was going through his mind right now, but if they kept wasting time, she’d never be able to sneak away to Tatooine before the base was up and running with morning duties.

She took a step back, feeling the loss of his heat against her, and tried not to let that get to her.  “I have to go.  If you can take any time off from your duties as Supreme Leader, I hope you use it to come to Tatooine.”

Then, taking one last look at him, his eyes a dueling mixture of cold and warm, she turned on her heel and left her chambers.  As the door closed, she felt the connection dissipate with it.

He would come.  She believed that.

She refused to think about what she would feel if he didn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BAM now things are actually getting started. Oh yeah. Let's go to Tatooine!


	10. in which one space nerd does what she can and the other is conflicted (surprise, surprise)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, In My Veins by Andrew Belle goes swimmingly with this chapter.

Rey slipped silently into the hangar.  Her ship was just where she’d left it – right inside the big door, which had been left open for the night, thank the gods.  It wasn’t at the forefront of her mind, making sure they remained open, and it’d wake the whole base to have to lift them before her escape.  They were old and the opposite of quiet, and she breathed a sigh of relief, thanking the Force, as well.

An extra set of fuel reserves were shelved just inside the stairs she’d descended, and she grabbed two, just to be safe.  She’d replace them on Tatooine, and grab extras as well, to make up for her time spent away.

She climbed up the ladder to her X-Wing, dropping her duffel and quarterstaff in.

“Rey?” a voice said softly from behind her.  Rey shot up, hitting her head on the raised transparisteel panel of her X-Wing, and turned around quickly.

Rose stood there, her eyes wide with confusion.  Her hair was in disarray, pulled back in a messy bun, and she was wearing a pair of work pants and a loose-fitting utility shirt.  Looking as though she hadn’t slept in a week, with deep rivulets beneath her eyes.  Something stressful had been happening with her, and Rey felt that pang when she realized the two were not close enough for her to ask.

She must have been on night watch, and Rey hadn’t even bothered to check and make sure everyone was on the other side of the building.  She’d been too caught up, thinking about Ben Solo, potentially waiting for her on Tatooine, even though he was probably nowhere near that sector of the galaxy.  He was already making her lose her mind.

“Rose,” Rey said, tacking on a fake smile.  “I just realized I lost something, I came to see if I’d left it in the ship after my mission.”  Rose’s eyes were wary, glancing at the fuel reserves still in her arms.             

“You had to check that with a packed bag?” she asked after a beat, and Rey sighed, caught in her lie that had come too easily.  She climbed down the ladder and Rose took a hesitant step backward.  Rey couldn’t help but feel dismal about that.

“Saw that, did you?” Rey asked, mostly to fill the silence.  Of course she’d seen; she’d just called her out on it.

“Are you deserting?” Rose replied with her own question, her voice small and uncertain; afraid.  Rey felt her eyes widen with surprise of their own accord, and she raised her arms defensively.

“Of course not,” she retorted, disgusted by the idea.  “I just…I have something I need to take care of, and I knew the General wouldn’t let me go.”  She winced against the candor of her own words.

“Then don’t go,” Rose said immediately, and Rey took a slow breath, having to look away from the girl’s almost-black eyes.  She was pretty, with her innocent eyes, and when she smiled, it lit up her whole face.  But she was also incredibly perceptive, picking up on details many people would miss.

However, there was something unspoken between them that Rey couldn’t comprehend, and so she decided not to let it get to her.

“I have to,” Rey said finally.  “Please, Rose, I know I’m not your favorite person, but I _must_ go, and you can’t tell anyone I’ve gone until morning.”  There was that unintentional honesty again.  Rose blinked in surprise.

“You know you’re not my favorite person?” she repeated, her eyes narrowing in confusion.  “Rey, I think you’re _amazing._ ”  Her voice had a cadence of awe in it that Rey didn’t understand.  “You’re a hero!  You helped destroy Starkiller base, you went toe-to-toe with _Kylo Ren_.”  The memory made Rey’s stomach churn uncomfortably, but every word out of Rose’s mouth was more excited than the last.  “Then you trained under _the_ Luke Skywalker, _and_ you snuck onto the Supremacy to kill Snoke and defeated Kylo Ren _again_?”  She nearly corrected the mistake, because she hadn’t killed Snoke, but she wisely kept her mouth shut – too much honesty this evening could ruin everything.

Rose’s already huge eyes had grown wider with excitement as she spoke of Rey’s accomplishments – that didn’t really feel like accomplishments to Rey herself.  Then, all at once, the light drained out of them, and she looked off in the distance at a point that Rey couldn’t see.  “You’re the most incredible person I’ve ever met.  I don’t hate you, Rey.  I _envy_ you.”  She focused back on Rey, and there was an endless sadness in her face that stole Rey’s breath.  “You are so much that I will never be.”  Rey stared at the girl in shock for a moment, then slowly shook her head.

“Greatness is not achieved simply by _doing_ things,” she said, taking a step toward Rose.  This time, the girl didn’t move back.  Rey put a tentative hand on her shoulder.  “Greatness is achieved by believing that there is something out there greater than yourself, and reaching for it.  Finn told me about what you did on Canto Bight.”  Rose’s eyes widened infinitesimally, but Rey smiled at the slight change.  “And what you were going to do on the Supremacy.  What I know you could have done, if you’d not been caught.  And how you saved his life, both on Supremacy and on Crait.

“Rose, you’re already great.  You’re able to look beyond your personal desires and do what’s best for the Resistance and the rest of the galaxy.  That’s incredible!”

“Wow,” Rose breathed, staring at Rey with wide eyes.  She had no idea where that bit of wisdom had come from, but it had been what the young girl had needed to hear, apparently.

Rey lowered her hand, taking a step back toward the ladder, and Rose snapped out of her awed stupor.  “You still can’t leave!  Leia would kill me,” she said, taking a step toward Rey, no longer intimidated.  She reached into her back pouch and pulled out a stunner, and Rey’s hand came up reflexively, dropping the fuel reserves and stopping the girl in her tracks.

“I must go,” Rey said.  She thought for a moment, and then took a deep breath, knowing what she had to do.  That trick that had felt like instinct back on Starkiller, used out of necessity rather than cruelty.  But she’d actually made _progress w_ ith Rose, was on her way to making another friend, and it didn’t feel _fair_.  Pulling in a painful breath, Rey looked into the girl’s eyes, which were wide once more with fear.  She didn’t understand what was happening – had never been detained by the Force.

“You will forget this conversation ever happened,” she said sternly, reaching into the girl’s mind, and she watched as Rose attempted to fight the words, her eyes narrowing in concentration and confusion.  She was strong-willed, but not impossible to coerce.  Rey pulled the Force against her, wrapping it around her like a security blanket, before pushing all of that energy toward Rose.

“You will forget this conversation ever happened,” she repeated, a little bit harsher, and this time, she watched Rose’s eyes glaze over.  She’d succumbed to Rey’s manipulation, and that made her feel sick.  “You were patrolling the other end of the base.  You didn’t even realize anyone had left.”

“I will forget this conversation ever happened,” Rose said robotically, and Rey’s chest constricted.  “I was patrolling the other end of the base.  I didn’t even realize anyone had left.”

“Thank you,” Rey breathed, releasing the girl from the Force hold.  Rose’s hand fell limply at her side before she straightened up, shoulders back, and walked back into the recesses of the hangar, up the stairs, and out of sight.

Rey climbed back into her X-Wing, starting the engines and doing a quick check that all of the systems were running correctly.  Her hands trembled a bit in remorse, and her breathing refused to even out, but Rose wouldn’t have let her leave, and everything in her was screaming to get to Tatooine.

Especially now that she’d invited the Supreme Leader of the First Order to join her.

As she pulled away from the hangar and set her course, her head dropped against the steering column of her ship.  Now that she’d been disconnected from the bond and from Ben, she couldn’t believe herself.  How had she gotten caught up to the point that she’d invited _Kylo Ren_ to her mission on Tatooine?  The enemy of the Resistance, the reason they were in hiding, because he wanted them all dead.  Probably wanted _her_ dead, the way he’d wanted Luke dead; if not for abandoning him, then for becoming a Jedi, though she certainly didn’t feel like one.

She hadn’t been lying to him.  Something in the Force was urging her to extend the invitation; something about that exchange had felt right.  It was like she couldn’t picture being there without him – the pull was that strong.  But he hated her, would definitely kill her if she gave him the chance, and she didn’t even have a lightsaber to defend herself.

Of course, she wondered if that was why she’d asked him to come anyway.  Though his saber was immensely unbalanced, he clearly knew how to build one.  And he’d defended himself against Luke with his own blue-bladed saber – so he’d built at least two in his life.  If anyone could help her, it was Ben.

She was hoping she would follow up that thought with him being the last person that she wanted to ask, but she couldn’t even lie to herself about that anymore, no matter how good she seemed to be a lying to everyone else.  She _wanted_ to see him; craved it like a starving man in front of the most intricate and delicious meal.  And though she felt crazy, it was like she’d been missing half of herself for so long, and now, she was finally starting to feel whole, perhaps for the first time in her life.

She’d chase that feeling forever if she had to.

\---------------------------

Kylo Ren stared into the vast vacuum of the galaxy after the scavenger disappeared, probably on her way to Tatooine by now.  He’d killed the engines of his Upsilon and was now drifting idly through space as he pondered the choices before him.

He knew he should go back to the Ascendancy.  Pretend the scavenger girl hadn’t appeared before him, reassume his duties as Supreme Leader and pay whatever bounty hunter happened across her first.

Unsurprisingly, this thought makes him shudder in disgust.  Ren barely knew the girl, but he couldn’t imagine a galaxy without her.  The edge of his mind ached with her absence, but at least the headache had subsided since she decided to reopen the bond.  He wondered what it would be like if she weren’t there, at the other end of it.  If someone did kill her.  Would the hole in his mind that connected him to her close up, so he could finally know peace?  Or would it remain open, but be as empty and cold as the galaxy splayed out before him?  Even when she had shut herself to him, he could still feel her, feel the doors within his mind that refused their connection.  What would it be like if none of that were there?

However, if he did go to Tatooine, he knew by her own words he’d be alone with her.  She wasn’t good enough at lying for him to believe this was an ambush.  And she was strong, but by brute force, he could overpower her if he needed to.  If he decided to kill her.

He’d been to Tatooine before, of course – in his search for answers about Darth Vader.  Both his uncle and his grandfather had grown up there.  But the planet was barren of any Skywalker legacies.  Vader’s childhood hut had become home to a slew of other slave families, and his uncle’s had burned down by way of the Empire.

Why, then, was the girl so inclined to go there?

He thought again to the vision she’d mentioned, but it didn’t seem to hold any answers.  It was simply some man in the desert telling her that the next leg of her mission was there, and he couldn’t believe that she’d based her decision on that.  She was naïve.

He knew she was strong enough to fend for herself in the event that she was attacked.  He’d watched her kill four Praetorian guards.  But it still made him nervous, her plunging herself into a vat of bounty hunters who had each no doubt memorized her face.

His hands fisted against his legs, and he clenched his teeth.  It was absolutely infuriating that he was nervous by her actions – she had no right to interfere with his life like this.

Kylo Ren did not get anxious.

And yet, his thoughts bumbled around her being alone on a planet of hunters, and he screamed in frustration, standing abruptly from his seat in the cock pit and swinging blindly until his fist made contact with the back wall.  His hands were still bare, still patched with bacta strips from his earlier outbreak, and he groaned in frustration, leaning his head against the cool wall.

The last thing he needed to do was go to Tatooine after some scavenger girl.  He was the Supreme Leader of the galaxy, after all.

The thought made him scoff at himself.  What a dumb kriffing title.  Clearly made up to stroke Snoke’s already engorged ego.  But it did its intended job.

Supreme Leader Kylo Ren.  A feared name now throughout the galaxy, but all it did was make his chest burn with anger and resentment.  In a way, it was her fault he carried this burden, and he wanted so much to blame her.  To hate her, the way she was convinced he hated her.

Another frustrated groan, another fist against the wall that reopened the wounds beneath his bacta strips.

He ran his hands through his hair, fisting them at the nape of his neck and resisting the almost overwhelming urge to take his lightsaber to this blasted ship and float through space for the rest of his days.

After a moment, he sat back in the pilot’s chair, starting the engines.  The Upsilon thrummed to life.

If he didn’t return to the Ascendency within the timeframe he told Hux, he feared what would become of the First Order.  Whether they would assume him dead; that made him shudder.  Hux would undoubtedly take over and ruin the entire galaxy in a few short weeks.

With a low, angry growl, he typed in the coordinates and the ship set course.

\-----------------------------

The planet was a dismal, lonely place, Rey realized as she landed on the surface; but it wasn’t anything like Jakku.  Where Jakku was primarily sand dunes and flatlands, Tatooine was mountainous and full of cliffs and caverns and trenches.  She inhaled deeply as she climbed out of her X-Wing; it smelled just as she remembered it would, from her vision.  Dry, dusty, but vaguely salty, like she stood in the midst of an ocean that had long since dried up.

The twin suns were unforgiving above her, and she resented her own choice to wear black clothing almost immediately.  She’d always worn light colors, designed for surviving in the desert on Jakku.  After leaving that place and accepting that she’d never go back, she hadn’t cared so much about the durability of her clothes in a dry, hot place such as this.

She climbed down her ladder, looking in every direction for some sort of sign, something that would tell her what she needed to do next, and was met with only the endless stretches of desert.  Not a living creature in sight.

Everything she’d done up until this point suddenly overwhelmed her, and she leaned against the bracer on her ship, eyes wide with realization.  She was alone on Tatooine.  Alone for the first time since before she left Jakku.  And no one in the galaxy, save for perhaps the most dangerous man, knew where she was.

She sat in the sand, noting that even it was different.  The sands on Jakku were more like endless bits of chipped rock.  Here, the sand was fine and soft, each pebble small and round.  She scooped it up in her hand to inspect, then sighed, disheartened.  No matter what differences she could find, she still felt as though she was right back where she started.  Alone on a desert planet and no real reason as to why she was here.

She closed her eyes against the harsh sunlight above and concentrated.  Surely she was drawn here for a reason; she _had_ to be.  Though everything she’d done over the past week felt impulsive and hasty, there had to be meaning behind all this madness.

The betrayal of her abandoning the Resistance tried to rear its ugly head, and Rey quickly squashed it.  She’d deal with the repercussions of her leaving when she got back; for now, she needed to focus.  She needed to find the answers she sought.  She needed to be useful to them once more.

As Luke taught her, Rey took in a deep lungful of breath and reached out, stretching her feelings across the intricately-laced web of the Force and searching.  She was startled to find the depth of the Force within this planet – for seeming as empty as it was, the Force thrived here, weaving itself between every pebble of sand, every cliff, every mountain in a strangely satisfying way.  It thrummed beneath her fingertips, making the planet feel like it was almost humming.

Time was lost here.  Or perhaps it never existed in the first place; she couldn’t tell.

It was a peace she’d never known.  She could have spent hours in this full emptiness, feeling the Force of the universe as it surrounded and bound her to everything.  She might have, if there wasn’t a ripple within the web.  Like a stone thrown into the same spot in a pond, over and over, causing waves of Force to extend out and wash over her at the edge of it.

It almost felt like she was living within a radar.  The rippling was drawing her in, drawing her to something that she needed.

Rey reached further, trying to see what was there, but it was all energy and light swelling within the darkness, coursing through it like a river.  It wrapped around her, swallowing her whole in the Light, before she brought herself back to reality.

She opened her eyes slowly.  The suns had begun to set, and she looked out to them as she stood.  She must’ve been meditating for a few hours at least, she realized, taking a slow breath.  It had felt like minutes – the galaxy was far too easy to immerse and lose yourself in.

She climbed back up the ladder to her cock pit excitedly, turning the switches to power up the ship and doing a quick scan.  It had actually surprised her when the thing made it out of Barkhesh’s atmo without falling apart, so she wanted to make sure everything was orderly as often as possible, to avoid any untimely deaths.

The fuel gauge was low, and she reached back, patting her hand against the floor for her spare reserves, when she suddenly remembered.  Rose.  The stunner.  The Force manipulation.

She’d left her fuel in the hanger.

With a groan, she powered the ship back down, grabbing her things from the back and dropping them into the sand while she did a quick diagnostics test to make sure everything was locked up as tight as it would go.  If this planet were as similar to Jakku as it seemed, she’d have her ship scavenged in less than a day.  She looked toward the direction her ship was facing, where the town Mos Eisley lay just a few miles away, and contemplated going and getting more fuel, before Ben’s words echoed in her mind.

_"You’ll be killed within a day.”_

His warnings were alarmingly similar to Leia’s, about the bounty hunters, and she shuddered lightly.  No way could she let him be right about that, but she had no way to defend herself if she was attacked by a number of people with blasters.  Despite having her quarterstaff for close combat, she felt awfully naked without a lightsaber.

Dejectedly, she stared at the underbelly of her ship and prayed it would be here when she got back.

Having a general direction of where she needed to go, Rey grabbed her duffel and pulled it around one shoulder, wrapping the canvas strap of her quarterstaff around the other.  Her meditation had relaxed her, and despite realizing she couldn’t fly, the stress of leaving the Resistance on Barkhesh and the tension she’d felt after inviting Ben to join her had melted away.  Once the ship was out of view, there was nothing but the sand beneath her feet as they carried her toward an unknown destination.

 xxx

She walked until she’d exhausted herself, sitting in the sand long after the twin suns had set and the two moons shone high in the sky, the third moon peeking out from the horizon after running its lap around the planet.  She unrolled her bedmat, pulling a canteen and one of the few ration packs she’d managed to take without feeling too guilty.  She ate quickly, drinking her water greedily – two other liters were stored at the bottom of her duffel, but she’d hardly allowed herself a sip all day, and the headache behind her eyes was all the proof she needed for her dehydration.  Of course, after getting rid of the headache she’d had for months from closing the bond, this was almost a comfortable feeling.

Rey dug a hole in the sand once she’d finished eating and no longer felt light-headed.  She had slowly gathered kindling and fuel, and she built a fire, lighting it with the flint she’d packed.  It carried enough light for her to wander a ways away, finding more things to burn buried in the sand.

She sat heavily on the bedmat once more, staring at the fire until her eyes ached.  She rested them against her knees, wondering if she’d be able to sleep tonight in this strange place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well finally, Rey touches down on Tatooine and Everyone's Favorite Supreme Leader™ has an internal war with himself. As though that's surprising.
> 
> I was actually going to include the next part of this but then the chapter would have been like almost 7,000 words and I generally average 5,500 which STILL FEELS LIKE TOO MANY so I'll update again soon.
> 
> Raise your hand if you think Ben's gonna go back to the Ascendancy and leave Rey to ask her questions through the newly-opened Bond? OR if he's gonna go running to Rey because let's face it, the boy is struck dumb? Vote in the comments!
> 
> Kudos make me update faster (and I am not ashamed). As always, I appreciate it very much that anyone has bothered to read this at all, and if you have any questions leave them in the comments section and I'll answer them with the next update.


	11. in which our two favorite space nerds are dumb. honestly. so dumb.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, Cosmic Love by Florence + The Machine pairs nicely with this chapter.

The flight took longer than expected, even through hyperspace, and Ren realized he’d felt urged to take the fuel reserves for this reason.

Tatooine was in the Outer Rim, in the Arkanis sector, on the opposite side of the galaxy from the Ascendancy, and he’d been so close to going back.  He’d headed in that direction for a solid half hour before something within him urged him to turn around, go to _her_ , the way she’d come to him on the Supremacy.  He’d comm’d Hux, told him he had other matters to take care of, mentioned he had a Resistance lead (partially true) but wouldn’t contact the Order unless he needed backup.  Hux had actually sounded excited, though whether it was due to the possible lead on the Resistance base or the extended absence of Kylo Ren, he hadn’t cared to ask.

Of course, once he entered the atmosphere of the desert planet, he had no idea where to go.  The girl couldn’t make it easy, coming to him in that moment and giving her location.  He reached back, feeling for the bond, and though he wasn’t met by the cold absence of her blocking him, the bridge between them suddenly exhausted him.

She must be asleep.

He lowered the Upsilon as he flew through the dark night.  His initial thought was Mos Espa – what else could drive her here, if not the legacy of Darth Vader – but the connection hazed when he directed his ship there.  With a slow breath, he closed his eyes, searching for her specific signature through the masses of people.

She stuck out like a sore thumb, far from any civilization, and he steered course toward her.

Their roles had truly been reversed.  The scavenger had sought him out the last time, believing in the light within him, risking her life in a futile attempt to salvage his.  Now, he was risking his galaxy in some ridiculous operation to…what, exactly?

He sighed, frustrated, and flew closer to the ground, looking for some sign of her.

There, in the distance.  A flickering.  For a moment, he thought he might actually be seeing her Force signature, but upon closer inspection he realized it was simply a fire.  But it must be her; no one else would be alone in the middle of an unforgiving desert.

He lowered the ship for landing a few dozen yards away, watching amusedly as she sat up suddenly and scrambled to her feet.

The ship settled into the sand, and he watched as she stared up at it in amazed disbelief.

She.  The scavenger.  The desert girl.

Rey.

Thinking her name leaves a trail of red-hot scorch marks blazing through his mind.  It whips across him almost immediately, making his muscles tense, the sensation verging on painful.  He hadn’t allowed himself the luxury of her name in months – thinking it, and staring at her wide, curious eyes, reignited something within him he thought had long since burned out.

With a slow breath, attempting to regain some composure, he stood up, walking to the rear of the ship and slapping the button to lower the ramp before he could second guess himself.

The air was cool with the night, a light breeze sweeping his hair back off his forehead as he descended the ramp.  His boots scraped against the sand, and he stood for a moment, clenching and unclenching his fists with his back to her.

Once he turned around, it would be real.  There would be no barrier, no Force bond, no ship – just her, in the flesh.  Just Rey.  As she had been aboard the Supremacy.  Real, living; _breathing_ in the same space as him.

“Ben…?” her soft voice reached him, and she sounded much closer.  She’d actually approached him, without hesitation.  His hands curled, suddenly feeling very bare without his gloves.

Finally, he turned, taking on the full force of her gaze, still incredibly wide and curious.  Her eyes shimmered in the faint lights of the Upsilon’s generator as she moved closer still, reflecting more green than brown.  He breathed, slowly, taking all of her in.

She’d abandoned the desert style clothing she had clung to, which was ironic, given the situation she’d put herself in.  Instead, she wore more traditionally Jedi clothes, though they’d been more apt toward light tans and creams, and all of her underclothes were black.  Her hair was down, brushing her collarbones, which made him swallow something raw in his throat, save for a single braid that ran to one side of her head.

He noted, mildly surprised, that she held her quarterstaff tightly in one hand rather than her lightsaber.

“Ben,” she breathed, and he met her eyes as she drank him in as well.  “I can’t believe you came.”

“Neither can I,” he responded easily, and a smile spread across her cheeks.  He watched her eyes warily, waiting for the walls to come crashing down, but she just continued smiling in that breathtaking way, glancing down.

Suddenly, she reached out, her fingers brushing against the back of his hand, and he recoiled instinctively at the contact.  She looked at him sheepishly, taking a step back.

“Sorry.  I’ve been having strange dreams lately,” she looked pointedly at the sand they were standing on, “and I just wanted to make sure that you were real.”  He had no response, so he simply nodded his understanding.

The silence between them stretched, standing under the dimming lights of his Upsilon as it powered down.  Tentatively, he reached out to the bond, curious about what was going through her head.  He felt the cool press of her mind against his, and felt her elation, her continued disbelief despite proving that he was solid beneath her fingers.

She shivered visibly at the contact between their melded minds and took a slow breath before he felt her mind reaching out toward his as well, trying to feel his emotions.

This was new and different, but it seemed to come to each of them so naturally.

She was met with his disbelief in himself, having come to this planet after her, as well as his wariness and confusion, and she smiled warmly once more, though she didn’t meet his eyes.

She pulled away from his mind first, but his curiosity got the best of him, and he continued exploring hers.  She didn’t seem to mind, sighing softly as the lights powered all the way down.  He told himself it had something to do with her potential deceit, her betrayal.  But really, it was because it just felt so compelling to feel her within his own mind, of his own accord.

“Where’s your lightsaber?” he finally asked, nodding toward her quarterstaff and breaking the comfortable silence, and she looked up at him sheepishly.

Glancing at her fire behind them, she motioned for him to follow her, and he obliged.

Rey knelt down on the bedmat she’d laid out for herself, and Ren realized with mild surprise that she hadn’t packed a blanket, despite the dropping temperature of desert nights.

She pulled out a wrapped parcel from the bottom of her duffel and carefully set it on the bedmat, unraveling the cloth to uncover the pieces of lightsaber, the physical evidence of their time spent together aboard the Supremacy.  He was surprised, figuring she’d fixed it by now – it had been months since they’d parted on Crait.  He kneeled down next to her in the sand.

“I figured out how to take it all apart,” she said, feeling his confusion, “but I had no idea how to put it back together.  There wasn’t an instruction manual, unfortunately.”  She chuckled, but he could feel her embarrassment.

Of course, she’d have no idea how to put a lightsaber together.  She’d even kept the broken pieces of metal, which were useless now, but she wouldn’t know that.  If she tried to use what was before her, the entire hilt would explode and probably destroy the kyber crystal.

“I think that’s why I’m here,” she finally said as he picked up various pieces of the metal and examined them, trying to determine what was useable.  He refused to think what broke it apart in the first place.  “There’s something on this planet that could help me in putting it back together.  The man in my vision said questions I had would be answered here.”

“I can build a lightsaber,” he said, glancing up at her and looking away when he realized she was already looking at him.

“I’ve thought about that,” she said after a moment of silence.  “But I think it might be something I have to do on my own, for some reason.”

“Yes,” Ren agreed, setting the pieces of metal back into her parcel.  “The owner of the lightsaber typically meditates over the pieces for a few days while they form together.  But any questions you have, I probably have answers to.”

“I don’t even know what questions I have,” she said honestly, sitting back with her legs stretched out before her.  She tucked the saber back into her duffel as Ren bent a leg beneath him, sitting back as well.  His guard was up, but he could tell that she was completely at ease with his presence.  Him, who should want to kill her more than anyone else in the galaxy, and who she should want to kill, as well, but her body language was relaxed, and everything between them felt natural, like they’d done this a million times.

Perhaps in another life, they had.

“Why did you come?” she asked, dragging the conversation back to her unanswered questions that she claimed to not know.  She caught him off guard, which wasn’t the first time, but it also wasn’t a feeling he would ever get used to.  The question mulled over in his mind.  He wanted to be sarcastic, or rude, or perhaps not answer her at all, but only honest words would tumble from his lips.

“I have no real answer to that question,” he replied, daring another glance at her.  She hadn’t stopped looking at him for more than a few seconds, perhaps still trying to convince herself that he was real.  “I initially was on my way back to the Ascendancy, after you asked me to come.”  There.  That seemed like an appropriate amount of information.

“Ascendancy?” she asked, pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.

“The main Order destroyer.”

“Quite the name,” she mused, and Ren nearly cracked a smile.

“General Hux is known for his theatrics, if nothing else,” he agreed.

“So, a ship is home to the Supreme Leader.”  He watched her debate that in her mind, and she grimaced, as though it tasted bad in the back of her throat.  “Seems awfully lonely.”

He had no response, so he said nothing.

“Sorry,” she said after a moment, and he met her eyes.  “I’ve been acting strange, I know.  Though I spent a lot of time in the same place, I didn’t get the opportunity to socialize much.  I guess I regressed back to that awkward desert rat.”

“How long did you spend alone?” he asked, and she shrugged her shoulders, chancing a look up at the stars.

“On base, or on Jakku?”  He shrugged as well, in response to her question, and she sighed heavily.  “On Jakku, I was always alone, for as long as I can remember.  I spent my days scavenging old Star Destroyers and AT-AT units.  Of course, it had been so many years since the battle that most of the ships were hollowed out by the time I got to them.  I had to be able to squeeze into small crevices to get the real good stuff.  That’s probably why Unkar Plutt kept me around for as long as he did.”  This was all information he knew, of course, but he let her continue.  Her eyes glazed over with memory for a moment before she shook herself out of the daze, looking at Ren once more, and he tried not to be angry as she opened up about her past.  He was having a hard time not despising her parents for what they did to her, not rushing back to his Upsilon and finding their grave so he could tear apart their decomposed corpses.  “On base, there was always someone there, but none of them really…”  She trailed off, twining her fingers together and looking toward the fire, and Ren understood.

"They were frightened of you,” he said, knowing she’d never admit it aloud herself.  Even now, she shook her head, but she knew it was true.  “They’ll always be frightened of you, Rey.  They don’t understand your power, so they recoil from it.”

“I’d rather not have this discussion,” she said, still not looking at him, which was giving him the opportunity to look at her.  He stayed silent, gazing at her profile, which seemed lost in thought.  The last time he’d gotten to look at her like this, her face was contorted in fury and passion as they tore apart the Praetorian guard, then endless sadness as she refused his offer to rule beside him.  Now, however, she just looked peaceful.  It wasn’t an expression he’d seen on her, and he came to find that he liked it.

“What happened?” she asked after a few minutes, and he blinked, having lost himself in his own thoughts.  He followed her eyes to his knuckles, reflexively fisting his hands against his thighs, as though he could hide them from her.

“Nothing of importance,” he answered, unwilling to tell her that his Upsilon was now home to a few bruises from his unwarranted displays of anger.  She continued staring at him, her eyes darting from his face to his hands and back.

“I’m not used to seeing you without gloves,” she said finally, and Ren figured she was just trying to fill the silence.  He glanced at his hands, barren save for the bacta strips that had bled through after he reopened his wounds.

“I’m not used to not wearing them,” he answered honestly, and she smiled at that.

“I had a small mission for the base just before I came here,” she began, and he glanced at her, knowing she’d stated before that she’d been grounded.  She shook her head.  “I stayed planetside.  However, I’d needed to make a torch, and I ended up using these.”  She gestured to her arm wraps.  “One of the first things the General said to me when I got back was that she’d never seen me without them.  I found it quite funny at the time, but it made me feel awfully exposed, too.”

“I’ll replace them once I get back to the Ascendancy,” he said with a shrug, and he watched her face fall the smallest amount.  He wanted to fix that, but he had no idea how.  Surely, she didn’t think him coming here meant anything more than…what?  He didn’t even know what it meant himself.

“I’m dreading having to go back,” she said, and her eyes widened, as though she was surprised at her own words.  Then she sighed, opting to continue, since the words were already out there, and she had no way of taking them back.  “I know that everyone I left behind is probably furious with me, and scared that I won’t return.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d started scouting the galaxy, trying to find me.”  She looked up at the stars as if searching for a ship there, closing the distance between her and those who sought her.

“You don’t have to go back,” Ren found himself saying, knowing full well this was not a can of worms he wanted to open.  He took a breath in to say more, then shut his mouth, leaving the air open between them.

She stared at him for a long moment, weighing her words carefully.  “I’d have nowhere else to go.”  He let the implications of that sentence wash over him, and he dug his fists into his thighs.

She was infuriating at every turn.  Why was he even here?  Why did the Supreme Leader go to kriffing Tatooine after some scavenger girl?  Why hasn’t he killed her yet?  It would be so easy – she had too much faith in him, and he could lash out with his saber at any given moment and end this entire ordeal.  He’d never have to be the subject of her scrutiny again.  The Resistance would have a hard time rebuilding with their beloved Jedi gone, and Kylo Ren could finally rule the galaxy with peace of mind.

But, truly, he knew he couldn’t kill her.  No matter how badly he wanted to, no matter what he thought was for the best, the torment within him would only rage harder at her permanent absence.  His turmoil would increase exponentially.  He _knew_ these things.  But he wanted so badly for them not to be true.

“Ben,” she said, dragging him from his thoughts and back to the present with that name.  He glanced at her, with her hazel eyes, so full of remorse.

He stood up abruptly, knowing where this conversation was going and not wanting to have it.  “There doesn’t seem to be any progress we can make.  I’m going to my ship until morning.”  He took a few steps, then looked back at her, on her tiny bedmat with her arms still wrapped around her knees, staring up at him with that same remorseful gaze.

For a split second, he wondered if she’d accept an invitation to join him aboard his Upsilon for the night, but she interrupted such a thought with soft spoken words.

“Good night, Ben.”  He looked toward his feet, then nodded once before turning away and walking back to his ship.

... 

He laid awake in his quarters that night, staring up at the ceiling of his ship.  There were new dents in the storage room next to his first one, and his knuckles ached beneath the new bacta strips he’d put on.  He had no idea why he didn’t just get into his cock pit and fly off this planet and away from the girl who made it so hard for him to think coherently.

Whatever it was she was looking for, she could find on her own.  He could go back to the Ascendancy, resume his place of power, let her return to the Resistance.

Why, then, was he not moving?  Why was he stationary, wondering what she was doing, what she was thinking about just outside his ship, laying beneath the stars in sands that were foreign to her, brought to this planet by a dream?  This planet, over any other planet.

The planet where Ren’s legacy began.

Angrily, he turned to his side, staring at the door of his chambers and willing sleep to come.  Of course, it evaded him, as he expected it to.

With her so close, he couldn’t even bring himself to be surprised.

\--------------------------------------------

Rey stared at Ben’s back as he walked away from her, the tugging in her heart willing her to follow him.  But she knew he needed time to come to the conclusions she thought she’d already come to – they wouldn’t be on the same side, no matter what.  He was attempting to run an entire galaxy, and she had little more than a rag tag group of vigilantes attempting to overthrow an army.

Both sides of this suddenly seemed exhausted and pointless, and she threw herself back on her bedmat, eyes up in the sky, searching for what she knew was only a few yards away.

Ben.  They were now within reaching distance of one another, and she’d still managed to effectively push him away.  She had no filter around him, unable to confine her words to her mind and mouth where they belonged.  She knew, saying what she did, that she’d open a wound within him that she wasn’t sure had quite healed.

And the fact that he was here to begin with still felt surreal and impossible.  In the middle of the desert on some remote planet, bound by no government and ruled by no man or beast.  Perhaps it was a political tactic – take over rule of this Outer Rim planet, but that seemed unlikely.  Ben was ambitious, but if what he and General Organa said were true about this planet, even he would know that to be impossible.

His abrupt leaving left her feeling like he was much further away than he had been days prior, when he’d been across the galaxy, and that gaping wound in her chest felt wider than it ever had.  All of this was ridiculous, she knew; he’d only re-entered her life days ago.  Why were all of her feelings so much stronger than they had been in the past?  Why did it continuously feel like she was walking further down a path from which there was no return?

“I must be insane,” she said aloud, to no one in particular.  For a brief moment, she wished she’d brought Artoo along, if only to keep her company, but everything would have been compromised by the droid.  Plus, they needed him back on Barkhesh, to help send and receive transmissions from their allies.

Reaching out, she pulled in a handful of that same fine sand, letting it run through her fingers absently.  She knew she should sleep, but with Ben idling just a few yards away, it seemed impossible.  So instead, she just lay there, letting the minutes tick by and trying not to think too hard about what would happen in the future.  For now, she needed to focus on why she was brought to Tatooine in the first place.  Simply to rebuild her lightsaber?  Or for more than that?

She chuckled to herself when she realized the man in her vision was right about her having questions, regardless of whether she knew these were the questions she was supposed to be asking.

The wind picked up a bit, and Rey shivered, sitting up and reaching into her duffel for the poncho she carried on her for nights such as these.  She pulled it over her head and wrapped it tightly around her shoulders, laying on her side to face the fire and shutting her eyes tightly.

After a little while of unrest, Rey sat up, grumbling angrily as sleep evaded her.  She wrapped her arms around her knees and set her chin upon them, looking at the imposing ship in the distance and wondering about its one passenger.  Was sleep something that refused him, as well?  Or did he find it easier than she happened to?

She’d foolishly hoped that unveiling the bridge between their minds once more would help her sleep more than she had previous, but she’d gotten merely a single night of reprieve from her restlessness.

How endlessly frustrating.  She groaned, closing her eyes and resting her forehead on her knees.  Even on Jakku, haunted by the howling winds and her never-ending well of loneliness, sleep hadn’t been so out of reach.

She looked back toward the ship, wondering if it would even be there in the morning, or if Ben would realize his mistake coming after her and leave, just as she’d left him.  She began doubting herself and her choice to bring him along, despite knowing it was what the Force had willed.  When they’d communicated across the bond as she’d prepared to depart to Tatooine, she’d been so sure of herself and her invitation that it was almost like she was another person.

Now, with him actually here, harboring the same planet, just a few yards away from her, she’d never felt so uncertain.  Perhaps it was easier when the bond was closed.

The inaptness of such a thought hit her like an X-wing jumping to hyperspace, so harshly she actually gasped against her knees, looking toward her chest as though she could see the physical wound that had festered there over the months she’d been so studiously ignoring it.

The Force brought them together.  She just had no idea what that meant.

 ...

Rey must have dozed off at some point, because she awoke some hours later as the first of the suns began rising over the horizon.  She was still sitting up, her forehead rested against her knees, and her body ached with the extended position as she moved.  Her back cracked uncomfortably and her knees were too tense.  She stood up, looking at Ben’s Upsilon, which sat glistening in the early morning light, and felt the inadvertent relief swell in her chest.  Sighing against it, she stretched, rolling her shoulders and neck, trying to work out the tension.

She was rolling her bedmat and covering the remnants of her fire with sand when the ship’s ramp descended.  Ben exited, turning around to make eye contact with Rey.  He was the stoic mask she’d come to expect, though his under-eyes were singing with the same purplish circles she was sure she sported herself.

“Good morning,” she called as he approached, tying her bedmat up and hooking it beneath her duffel.  He nodded his assent of her greeting but didn’t respond, and she took a slow, dejected breath as she cinched her bag.  He must still be upset.  She brushed the sand off her clothes as he came to stand beside her, watching her with piqued interest.

“Do you know where we’re headed?” he asked after she finished filling her fire hole with sand.  She glanced up at him, shielding her eyes from the suns as they climbed higher in the sky, and noticed that his eyes were much lighter in the sun.  Almost an amber color.

“I have a…general idea,” she said, hesitant, and his eyebrow quirked.  She sighed, hanging her shoulders.  “Look, I was dragged her by a vision and the only clues I have are in the Force.”

“You have no idea what you’re looking for,” he assumed, and she sighed, shouldering her bag and her staff.

“I’ll know it when I see it,” she responded, taking a deep breath and setting off.

“Wouldn’t you rather fly?” he asked, gesturing to his ship, and she looked behind her at him, then at the Upsilon, and laughed.

“What, you think flying around in what is clearly a First Order ship on a nihilistic planet with the most recognizable face _and_ the most recognizable man in the galaxy is a good idea?”  She ticked all the negatives off on her fingers and scoffed at the audacity.  “I apologize, but no thank you, I’d rather walk.”

He sighed, running a hand through his hair.  He knew she had a point, and a smile lit up her face as she turned and back toward him, walking backwards.  “Besides, it might be good for the Supreme Leader to go through the hardship of walking in a desert every now and again.”  Ben looked back at his ship, then sighed deeply, turning to follow her.  His long legs quickly overtook her, and he fell in stride beside her.

“You say it like I haven’t been to this planet before,” he mumbled as they walked through the sand.  She glanced up at him, a smirk on her face, and his eyes glanced down at the dimple on her cheek.

“Following Anakin?” she assumed, and he met her eyes in slight shock.

“And Shmi,” he agreed automatically.  Then he paused.  “How did you know?” he asked, unsure of if he wanted to know the answer.

“I asked Artoo a bit about him,” she said, only lying a little.  “I know he grew up on this planet, or was enslaved, I suppose is more accurate.”  She shrugged, and his eyes widened, looking forward toward the direction they were walking rather than at her.

“What else did you find out?” he asked after a bit of silence.  She looked up at him, her eyes wide.  Then it dawned on her.

“You never asked Artoo,” she said, and noted as his hands clenched into fists.

“By the time I found out…the truth, I’d trained for years at Skywalker’s Academy and...  Asking the droid wasn’t exactly an option for me.”  He was leaving information out, she could tell, but she didn’t pester him for answers, hoping they would come in due time.

“Ah, then I have information to lord over you,” she said with a sly smile, and he stared at her with an unsatisfied expression.  She laughed, and his hands slowly unclenched.

“Not that it matters,” he said, a little too quickly.  “The past is the past.”

“Yes, and it should die, right?” she finished, and he looked down at her before nodding.

“Right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so Ben finally does what everyone knew he was gonna do and makes it to Tatooine, because let's face it, the boy's a lovesick puppy and would probably let Rey spit in his face and stomp on his chest and then ask her what sector of planets she wants to run.
> 
> And then they both act so dumb. And I'll be honest, for a while, they only get dumber. But that's neither here nor there.
> 
> Yayyy, they're on the same planet again! Talking face-to-face without yelling! (The yelling comes later; there's a lot unresolved between these two that they are not willing to deal with right now.)
> 
> Anyone have any idea what Rey might be looking for?
> 
> I'll give you a hint; it's part of the legends, so it's not exactly canon-compliant but part of the extended universe.
> 
> As always, kudos make me update faster, I appreciate any and all feedback left in the comments, and any questions asked in the comments will be answered with the next update! Thank you all so much!


	12. in which the two space nerds get into a fight. first not with each other, then with each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, Dance on Our Graves by Paper Route pairs well with this chapter

They walked in silence for some time, though it was more comfortable than Rey thought it would be.  Natural.  Relaxed.

She followed that ripple in the Force, and asked him at one point if he could feel it, but he shook his head.  He stated that this was her mission, and she was meant to find whatever it was at the end of the map the Force laid out before her.

“You’re quite wise when you want to be,” she’d mused out loud, and he looked down at her from the corner of his eye.  He didn’t reply, but she swore she saw the ghost of a smile on his lips for the briefest of moments.  She’d never seen him smile, and it left her with a feeling in the pit of her stomach that she opted to ignore for the time being.

“We should have gone into town and gotten a speeder,” he said after a few hours, breaking their comfortable silence.  They both wore black, and the suns beat down on their backs, causing the heat to permeate that much hotter.  Both of them were sweating, red with exertion.  His skin beneath that was turning pink as well with a sunburn, she noticed with some amount of amusement.

“I’d have rather not been killed before finding out why I’m here,” she said, shaking her head.  “I still haven’t figured out how I’m getting fuel for my X-wing.”

“I could get it for you,” he said, almost too quietly for her to hear.  She stared at the sand as she walked, wide-eyed.  She took a slow breath.  Why did his offer make her chest constrict this way?

“I’d rather not get you killed with my endeavors, either,” she finally said, still not able to look up at him.  He shook his head, closing his eyes.

“They couldn’t kill me if they tried.”

She looked up at him, eyes narrowed.  “I don’t know if I like your implications, _Supreme Leader_.  Are you saying they could kill me?” she asked, a hint of playfulness under her tone.  He shrugged his shoulders, non-committal, but that ghost of a smile was back.  The banter was too easy with him, despite where they were just a week ago.  She wanted desperately to apologize, but she was afraid he’d cut the conversation off completely or turn around back to his ship like he had last night if she tried.

“Until you get a saber, I’m not really sure how you’ll fair with that thing,” he said, eyeing her quarterstaff with a wary expression.  She feigned hurt, scoffing at the accusation.

“I’m actually quite good with this ‘thing’, I’ll have you know,” she said, pulling it off her shoulder and holding it in her hand.  She twirled it lightly from one hand to the other, as natural to her as breathing.  “I wish I could make a lightsaber like this.”

“A saberstaff?  Darth Maul had one,” Ben replied, watching her spin her quarterstaff with a wary eye, ready to defend himself if she lost control of it.  Despite her confidence in her own ability, he knew it would hurt if she hit him with that.  It almost looked like it was made of old lightsaber parts.

She stopped twirling and turned fully to look at him, causing him to stop walking, as well.  “Who is Darth Maul?  What is a saberstaff?  It’s like this?”  She gestured to her quarterstaff.  He was taken aback, taking a moment to figure out his words.  She was suddenly very intense.

“Darth Maul was Sidious’ first apprentice,” he finally responded, shaking his head of his confusion.  “He made a saberstaff, like this,” he said, pulling his lightsaber off his belt, “only two, with a blade on either side.”

“Could I make one?” she asked excitedly, gripping her staff a little bit tighter.  She was already running through a multitude of options in her mind.  She knew she’d be significantly more balanced with a saberstaff over a lightsaber, having trained for so many years with her weapon of choice.  Ben took a slow breath.

               “I suppose,” he said, turning to begin walking again.  She stared excitedly at her quarterstaff for a moment longer before running to catch up with him, her legs aching with the effort.  They’d been walking all day, and she’d not gotten this much exercise in months.  “You’d need another crystal, though.”  He glanced at her, watching her face fall as they walked.

“Right, of course,” she breathed after a moment.  “Two blades, two crystals.  It makes sense.”  She fingered her duffel, probably trying to feel for the crystal through the fabric.  Rey sighed, watching her feet as they walked for a little while, thinking about where she’s going to get a second crystal, if she’d even be able to.  She was sure Ben probably knew where Jedi mined them, but she didn’t want to be traveling to some unknown planet on her own, and there was no way her companion would continue with her beyond her mission.  That thought almost hurt worse than realizing she needed a second crystal.

“Your mood just dropped,” he commented, glancing at her.  “I can feel it.”

“Oh,” she said, pulling in a shaky breath and trying to pull herself together.  “Strange.”  They walked in silence for a while longer as she still tried to convince herself that a regular lightsaber was a better option for her than a saberstaff.  Of course it was.  She needed to learn how to handle a new weapon anyway, she couldn’t get stuck in her ways.  It was getting stuck that caused her to stay on Jakku for so much of her life, waiting for two people who were never coming back for her.  It wasn’t until she took risks and changed, taking BB-8 under her wing for an evening, that she met Finn, who led her to the Millennium Falcon and Chewie and Han.

She glances up at Ben as his father rushes through her thoughts, trying to hide them.  She was good at squashing what she felt when she remembered that Ben killed Han.  The man, walking leisurely beside her, whom she’d invited on her journey.

She focused on what she felt across the bond, when she brought it up on Ahch-To, and despite his stoic face and harsh words about destroying the past, she felt his conflict and his remorse, saw them in his eyes.  Those feelings helped her quell her anger at him for Han’s death.

Ben watched her, a curious expression on his face as her emotions flitted from one to another, so fast it was giving him whiplash.  She was projecting her feelings and she didn’t even realize it.  Perhaps it wasn’t something neither of them could hide anymore.

Despite the tragedy that brought them together, in this moment, she was almost happy.  He was beside her in comfortable silence, an unspoken camaraderie between them.  He’d gone out of his way to come to her, chasing her as she chased her vision.

She realized, quite suddenly, that she’d forgiven him without even realizing it.  The thought, the realization, was freeing somehow.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked, finally, after finding himself unable to figure out her mood swings.

“A lot of things,” she responded.  “Mostly, though, where I could get another crystal.”  Well, it wasn’t exactly a lie, was it?  He thought for a long moment.

“The padawans of my academy traveled to Ilum,” he finally said.  “A planet out in the unknown regions, though the caves were most of the way mined out when we made the journey there.”

“I shouldn’t be gone longer than necessary,” she said lamely, feeling out the Force to make sure they were still going in the right direction.  The rifts in the Force were so close together, they were nearly on top of their destination, just as the first sun was setting.  “It’s near here,” she said, picking up her pace, and he had to stretch his legs to keep up with her.

They came upon a cliff side and looked out.  Rey closed her eyes, feeling the web of the Force, looking for their destination.  She looked down to the bottom of the cliff and noticed something peculiar sticking out of the sand at the base.

“There,” she said, pointing down.  He followed her hand to the same strange formation in the sand.  “Now, we’ll have to –“

Suddenly, the quiet air around them was pierced with a loud, angry cry from somewhere behind them.  Rey looked at Ben, who had already drawn his lightsaber, thumb hovered over the ignition button.  The only sound for a moment was their breathing.

Another, even louder cry, deep and guttural, sliced through the silence.  Rey pushed her duffel onto her back and drew her quarterstaff in front of her, taking a half-step closer to Ben and turning her back to him as he turned his back to her.

Rey scanned the distance, looking for the source of the sound.  It was…some type of war cry, though not something she’d ever heard before.  She felt a light pressure against her, and she glanced down to see Ben’s hand on the small of her back as he ignited his saber with an angry crackle.

Another scream, in front of Rey, though she still couldn’t find the source.  This one went answered by something closer to Ben’s half of their circle.  She reached back, as well, her fingertips trailing along the backside of his hand, feeling the bond in their minds as it thrummed to life with the contact.

The cries pierced the air again, but it was on all sides this time, save from the cliff next to them.  They pulled their hands apart at the same time, listening as the beings yelled and seemed to respond to each other.  Rey tensed, her staff gripped tightly in both hands, taking a defensive position.

The dunes around them rustled, and the sources of the cries suddenly popped out all at once.  At least ten humanoid creatures rushed them from all sides, crying their war cries, not even pausing in their advances despite Rey and Ben’s drawn weapons.

Conscious of the cliff next to her and Ben covering her back, Rey lashed out just as the first creature came upon her, driving her staff straight into the thing’s chest.  She heard Ben’s lightsaber as is swung and met flesh, but she couldn’t focus on him.  The next creature was there, and she swung her staff around as she kicked back, both her foot and her staff meeting the resistance of bodies.

One of the creatures took advantage of her open side, jabbing a sharp weapon toward her, and she cried out as it grazed her side before pulling her elbow in and her knee up, crunching the being’s arm between them.  It screamed and dropped the weapon, and she brought her staff up, driving it beneath the thing’s chin.  She realized that it was wearing some type of mask.

She had no time to dwell on the specifics of their attackers.  Two more came up at once, one of them swinging another of those strange weapons down on her.  She brought her staff up defensively to block, then dropped one end to the ground, digging the hilt into the sand and using the momentum to swing her body weight, driving a hard kick into the side of the first thing’s head as the other lost its footing and its weapon.  Just as she whipped up, she glanced back at Ben, who was driving the creatures back, and she brought her staff up next to him, stabbing the end into the throat of one as it attempted to attack Ben’s blind spot.  She arched up with a primal yell, knocking her staff against the chin of the thing, and brought it down on the head of the one that had initially attacked her with a weapon.

Another came on her side, and she dodged as a huge blade came down above her, feeling rather than seeing Ben’s crouch next to her and rolling across his back as he brought his saber up against her attacker.  It was instinct, their bond wide open, her thoughts and his melding until they were one entity in two bodies.  She swung her staff back, hitting one in the side of the head, then parried back and hit it square in the middle of its forehead.

She swept low, tripping one of the creatures, and Ben brought his saber up, letting the thing fall directly into the angry red blade.  Rey whipped around, thrusting her staff forward and hitting one in the chest as it stabbed toward her.

Another swung at her from the side, barely giving her time to dodge, and she dove back, losing her staff and rolling, trying to stand but there was no land beneath her left foot, and she began falling backward off the cliff she’d forgotten about.

Oh stars, this was how she was going to die.  Not by the hands of a bounty hunter, or a Stormtrooper, or even Kylo Ren himself.  No, she would plummet off a cliff because some sand creature attacked her for no good reason.

Suddenly, she was yanked back toward the battle by the front of her shirt, and she fell forward, straight into Ben’s arm.  He took a moment, searching her eyes, his own wide with fear, and she could feel his adrenaline, his terror when he thought for a moment that she was going to fall.  Her heart jumped in her chest at his closeness, and he breathed a sigh of relief as she used the Force to call her staff back to her.

There were three more, but with his attention averted, one of the things managed to strike forward.  Just as her staff touched her fingertips, the head of a creature’s weapon dug into Ben’s leg, and he cried out, releasing Rey’s shirt.  She screamed, jumping around Ben, driving her staff into the creature’s chest, then swinging around and delivering the final blow into the thing’s temple.  She pulled back, diving across Ben as he brought his saber up, slashing the creature behind her as she brought her staff down hard against the other’s head.

Breathing hard, she turned toward Ben, who had clipped his saber back to his belt and was holding pressure against his leg, just above the knee, where a pyramid-shaped arrow head was sticking out of the flesh.

“Are you alright?” she asked, her voice an octave too high with adrenaline and worry.

“I’m fine,” he spat, though his anger was directed toward the littered bodies around them, not her.  She pulled the spare shirt out of her duffel that she’d packed.

“Come on, let’s get you somewhere to sit,” she said, taking slow breaths to calm herself.  She wrapped an arm around his midsection.  He leaned his weight against her, using her as a crutch, anger vibrating off him with every step as she led him away from the battlefield.

“What were those things?” she asked as she helped him sit against one side of a large dune.  She knelt next to him, ripping the shirt she’d pulled out.

“Tusken Raiders,” Ben responded, swatting Rey away as she tried to pull the arrow out of his leg.  “Territorial bastards.  They attack anything that tries to walk through their sands.”

“Are they the natives?” she asked, watching as he grit his teeth and yanked the arrow out himself.  He hissed a breath through his clenched jaw, then tried to take the shirt pieces from her.  She swatted him away this time, digging through her duffel again and pulling out an aid kit.

“Something like that,” he responded, watching through narrowed eyes as she pulled out a jar of bacta.  “That’s unnecessary.”  He gestured toward the jar, and she looked at it in her hand.

“Okay,” she responded, unscrewing the lid and scooping a dollop out on two fingers.  He sighed, unwilling to argue, and kept his jaw clenched tightly as she smeared the medicine over his wound.  It was a burning fire for a moment before it extinguished itself, numbing the wound and the area around it.  Ben sighed, watching her as she folded two strips of shirt against the wound, then tied the rest around the makeshift bandage.

“You have bacta but no gauze?”

“I grabbed without thinking,” she replied.  “Not a lot of time to plan these things when you’re essentially running away.”  She tightened the strips, and he hissed, though it didn’t exactly hurt.  He took slow assessment of her, noting the blood stains on her side.

“You’re hurt, too,” he said, nodding toward her hip.  She looked down, eyes wide, before she nodded, remembering.

“Forgot about that,” she said, sitting back on her heels and studying her handiwork.  “It’s just a flesh wound.”  He stared at her, eyebrows raised, and she sighed, digging through her bag before pulling out her bedmat linen.  She tore a strip of it, sitting next to him on his dune and pulling her shirt up.  He looked away as she dabbed the blood away, using the barest amount of bacta to help the wound close.

She pulled out the canteen, handing it to him first, and he took a swig gratefully.  She took a few pulls, capping it before allowing herself to get too greedy.

Ben leaned his elbows back and took a deep breath.  The second sun began dipping below the horizon.  All in all, the confrontation with the Raiders lasted less than ten minutes, but it had felt so much longer.  They were completely synchronized as they fought, and Rey couldn’t help but relive what had happened in the throne room all over again.  Fighting beside him was as natural to her as breathing.  She could only imagine how much faster the fight would have been if she’d had a lightsaber.

“You do fight well with that thing,” he said, breaking her train of thought as he motioned toward her quarterstaff.  She laughed, stretching her back.  She wasn’t used to being able to actually rest after a fight, always having to be on the move before.  It was almost nice, taking the time to absorb everything.

“I told you,” she said, and he shook his head, stretching his injured leg out.  “Think you’ll be able to climb down a cliff on that?”

“Yeah,” he said, reaching for the canteen, and she gave it to him.  He took a long swallow, then stood up.  “Most of my knee is numb.”

“That was the idea,” she replied, standing up beside him.  She smiled, and he stared back.  “I’m sure if we walk around a bit more, we’ll be able to find an easier way down.”

She gathered her duffel and looked back at the fallen bodies of the Raiders, shaking her head.  “Let’s go this way,” she said, taking off in the opposite direction, glaring at Ben as he stifled a laugh with a cough.  “I don’t appreciate that,” she called over her shoulder at him, noting once more that that ghost of a smile was on his face again.

Her stomach flipped, and she ignored it again, but smiled to herself nonetheless.

\---------------------------------------------------

They’d walked halfway around the cliff, finding a decline they could walk most of the way down, but some climbing would be involved.  With the light of the suns gone, they decided to make camp instead of working their way down.

Rey laid out the one bedmat she’d brought, and Ren sighed.  He hadn’t anticipated this trip taking this long, nor getting attacked by the Raiders, so he hadn’t thought to bring his own camping equipment.  She dug a hole and started a fire, and he realized not for the first time that this was more her natural habitat than anywhere else.

“You can take first shift,” she said, motioning toward the bedmat.  “I figured we should sleep in separate shifts, make sure those creatures don’t come back.”

“They won’t attack at night, as far as I know,” Ren responded.  “I don’t think they can see terribly well.”

“They wore those masks,” she said, looking toward the cliff where they’d been attacked.  “I hadn’t thought to take one and see if they had night vision.”

“I don’t think they have the technology for that,” he replied with a shrug, sitting on the bedmat.  His leg was already feeling significantly better, and he imagined it’d be most of the way healed in a few days.  If not, he’d have to see a med droid back on the Ascendancy, and it’d be taken care of regardless.

She sat across from him in the sand, and he watched her face as the light of the fire danced across her features, highlighting her eyes and her cheekbones.  She dug through her duffel and pulled out a couple of ration packs, tossing him one.  The last time they’d eaten had been shortly after they first started moving this morning, and Ren realized all at once that he was ravenous.  He went to open his pack, but watched curiously as Rey tore open her pack with vigor.  She dug into it like she’d never eaten before.

He mused that she was probably so accustomed to having to fight for her meals on Jakku that manners were the furthest thing from her mind when any amount of food was presented to her.  She ate quickly, tipping her head back to get any remaining crumbs, and he found her enthusiasm almost endearing, in a strange way.

He opened his own pack carefully when her eyes found his, cheeks stuffed full of food, and ate slowly, knowing the limits of his stomach.

It was her turn to watch him.

“It’s almost weird that you eat,” she said after a moment, a playful smile on her face.  “I thought for sure by now that you were a droid in disguise.”

“I am human,” he retorted after swallowing a bite.  “I don’t typically eat ration packs, though, so this is a little strange.”  He could give her that much.

“Mmm, yes, I’m sure your life is full of the most exquisite foods,” she mused, her eyes dancing in the fire.  He shook his head, eating the last of his pack.

“Typically I eat a few nutrition bars a day.  I’ve no real desire for much else.”  She stared at him for a long moment, her eyes narrowed in confusion.

“When was the last time you ate an actual meal?”  He thought about it for a moment, then shrugged.

“Inconsequential,” he replied, stretching his injured leg on the bedmat, and he watched as she looked away, some emotion brimming in her eyes he didn’t want to look too closely at.

The silence stretched between them, and after a while, he laid back, looking up at the sky.  She almost felt too far away, just on the other side of the fire, and he wanted to reach out to her, ask her to join him, but that felt impossibly personal.

Then, as he tried to disperse such thoughts, she was there, sitting in front of the bedmat, next to his torso, her knees drawn up to her chest with her back to him.  He watched her for a moment, no idea what he could possibly say to her.  A million thoughts ran through his mind, and he took a slow breath, reveling in the proximity of her as he tucked one hand behind his head, the other idling near her.  His eyes found the sky once more, and the silence felt a bit more comfortable.

“I never thanked you,” she finally said, softly, as though she were afraid he might have fallen asleep.  He waited a beat for her to continue, but she didn’t look back at him, her eyes trained on the fire.  He took a slow breath.

“Thanked me?” he finally asked, and her shoulders stiffened, as though she weren’t expecting a response.

“For saving my life,” she said quietly.  He looked at her again, her slight but strong figure, hair falling in disarray around her hunched shoulders.  “Not just here.”  She didn’t continue, but he knew what she meant.  He owed her no explanation, and had no intention of giving one, but the air around them suddenly felt heavy with all of their unspoken words.  The silence was tangible.

She reached back blindly, and her fingers found his.  He didn’t recoil this time.

The bond between them opened all at once with the skin-to-skin contact, their feelings spilling between them, drenching the air around them with everything they couldn’t say.  She felt his turmoil, his conflict.  His fear when he thought she would die at the edge of that cliff.  His relief when he was able to get to her in time.  His anger and confusion when the Force had pulled him toward Tatooine to begin with.  Then deeper, the resolve he felt when it had been _her_ life at the hands of Snoke, the fear that his plan wouldn’t work and she would perish anyway.  The freedom when he realized Snoke was truly dead.  His awe as she fought the Praetorian guard alongside him, their moves correlating perfectly, two halves of a whole.  His hope that welled within him as he extended his hand toward her.

And he felt everything within her as well.  Her disbelief when he landed in front of her the day before.  Her sadness and remorse when she realized what she’d put him through just by disconnecting them.  The loneliness that ate at her while she lived as an outsider amongst the rebels, and how quickly that was dashed as soon as they connected once more.  Then back, further, to her fear that he hated her.  How hard she tried to convince herself to hate him, knowing it was a foolish effort.  Her long nights, spent beneath the stars, actively trying not to think of him, and the realization that he’d never left her thoughts to begin with.  Her traveling to the Supremacy with that hope that she could turn him practically bubbling out of her chest.  And that moment, after they’d danced against Snoke’s guard, when he’d extended his hand, and she’d wanted to take it so badly it hurt.

Ren sat up abruptly, yanking his hand away from hers.  The heat from the lost contact burned like he’d grabbed a coal from the fire.  She’d turned toward him at some point, and there were tears streaming down her face.  She wiped at them, scowling like they’d betrayed her, as he climbed to his feet.

“Ben?” she asked, her voice cracking as he stumbled a few feet away, nearly falling when he initially put weight on is injured leg.

“No,” Ren replied, his back to her, clenching and unclenching his fists against his thighs.

“Ben, please,” she begged, scrambling to stand as well.

“I shouldn’t have come here,” he said, mostly to himself, but he felt the sting from across the bond.  He felt her approach, regardless of how his words hurt her.

“But you are here,” she said, her voice just behind him now as she attempted to justify his actions to both of them.  He felt her hesitation, then the slightest pressure against his back as her fingertips brushed against him.  “There’s a reason for that, you know it as well as I do.”

“I know nothing,” he responded coldly, keeping his back to her.  She was quiet for a long moment.

“I know I closed the bond,” she said finally, “and I apologize for that.  Truly.  I had no idea I would cause you such pain.”  Ren remained silent, and he heard Rey sigh, then shuffle even closer to his back.  “I’m sorry I left you alone, Ben.”

“I have no quarrels with being alone,” he said, but his voice was much softer, even to his own ears.  She could feel the lie that he refused to believe was a lie.

“I did what everyone else did to you,” she said, and he whipped around to face her, eyes blazing.

“Don’t claim to know me,” he hissed threateningly, but she wasn’t fazed by his anger.  She stared up at him, eyes and mouth set firmly.  They were so close now, she’d pushed herself up to her toes to make up some of the height difference, and their chests were only inches apart.

“You don’t scare me,” she said, the truth of her words churning between them.  “If you wanted to kill me you would have done so by now.”

Ren’s anger boiled just beneath the surface, his jaw clenched so tightly is almost hurt.  His hands curled, aching to grab his lightsaber.  He could tear her down so quickly, she’d never even see it coming, and he’d finally be done with all of this confusion and rage.  He could go back, lead the galaxy the way he was meant to.  Forget about the scavenger girl-turned-Jedi from Jakku who knew nothing about him, yet managed to know everything about him all at once.  Go back to being Kylo Ren. 

Then, he exhaled, and the anger bled away with his breath.

Ren hung his shoulders, searching her eyes, which were warm and green in the firelight.  Unconsciously, he leaned in closer to her.  She smiled before dropping off her toes, the height difference between them suddenly accentuated, her lips now much further away than they had been.

“I have no right to ask you to stay,” she said after a moment, and he watched her hands twitch before she tucked her thumbs into her fists, as she seemed to do when she was nervous.  “But I was hoping you’d stay anyway.”  He took a few slow breaths, wanting to take a step away from her but unable to bring himself to do so.  Her proximity made it hard for him to focus on the anger that had propelled him through the last ten years of his life.

She reached for his hand again, and he inched back, but she continued to reach and he didn’t stop her.  Their hands met, the hole between their minds opening wider once more, everything flooding between them.  The bond hummed, satisfied, as she laced her fingers in his.

“You’re sure those creatures won’t come back tonight?” she asked, and he shook his head, unable to form a coherent response.  Her touch was almost too much.  She nodded, a smile on her lips, before tugging him back toward the fire.  She sat on the bedmat, and after a moment, she looked up at him, patting the space next to her.  Ren stared at her.

She was impossible, ridiculous, meddlesome, misguided, and absolutely infuriating.  She made him second-guess every move he made, made him feel weak as the anger he’d cloaked himself in bubbled away like water in a stream.  He wanted to throttle her, scream at her, tell her not to touch him, tell her to call him by the name he gave himself.  He wanted to reiterate that Ben Solo was dead, that she was on this ridiculous mission with Kylo Ren, the most feared man in the galaxy.

He did and said exactly none of these things.

With a sigh, he sank next to her.

 ...

Rey ended up falling asleep sometime later with her head rested against her knees, and Ren sat up, staring at the fire as it died slowly, trying not to think.  What had transpired between them was trying desperately to pull his attention into a million different directions, and he was ignoring every pry as it came. 

After a while, she subconsciously leaned her weight against him, her head pressed against his shoulder.  Ren stiffened, his breath catching in his throat.  The contact made the bond open, and all he could feel was her exhaustion pushing against him, willing him to sleep as well.

She sighed against him, inching closer to his warmth, and Ren pushed back against the sleep as it threatened to overtake him.  The way she pressed against him was uncomfortable, and he adjusted his arm.  She fell against the side of his chest, and Ben shook at the contact.  Her knees fell to one side, leaning more of her body weight against him.

Ren felt his cheeks burning, but Rey was essentially dead to the world.  Slowly, he shifted her weight against him, sliding out from where she’d trapped him until he was on the very edge of the mat and her head was awkwardly positioned in his lap.  He was stressed, trying not to wake her, despite the fact that her exhaustion thrumming through the bond would make him fall asleep if he focused on it for more than a second.

He lifted her shoulders, attempting to free himself of her, but she brought her hand up against his tunic and grabbed it, burying her face against his thigh.

Ben let out an exacerbated sigh, his fists clenching and unclenching, before he resigned himself to his fate as her pillow.  She looked incredibly peaceful, her eyelashes so long they nearly brushed her cheeks.  Her end of the bond felt content, and Ren lifted his fingers hesitantly, hating the way they shook as he brushed her hair back over her ear, unable to stop himself.

It was too intimate.

He sighed, running a shaking hand through his hair.

What had he managed to get himself into?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damn those Tusken Raiders, injuring our sweet boy. But I'm certain the only reason Ben would ever get hurt by anyone or anything was if it was because he was distracted by or protecting Rey.
> 
> Also, please forgive me, I've never written a battle scene before so I hope it flowed well.
> 
> Alright so I'm pretty sure canonically Darth Maul actually has four crystals in his saber (synthetic crystals, actually, but I'm not sure if the creation of synthetics were de-cannonized with the Disney takeover.) However, due to the fact that Rey has a single crystal (not broken, as I was unaware of the halved crystal when I initially started writing this) she'd either need to find a way to split her crystal or get a second one. WHICH WOULD BE FINE IF THE EMPIRE DIDN'T SUCK SO MUCH AND USE THEM ALL TO POWER THE DEATH STAR.
> 
> Whatever is she supposed to do?
> 
> At least some of that unresolved tension got released into the aether where it belongs, though Rey wasn't quite as quick to give into anger (being who she is as a person versus who Ben is). Her anger will come later, I assure you.
> 
> Also a teensy bit of fluff because I cannot NOT write these two being cute I don't know what's come over me.
> 
> Questions:  
> "Has Ben already been to Tatooine then?" Yeah so I read or heard somewhere that Ben is a total nerd and has spent a bunch of time researching and collecting relics from both the Jedi and the Sith. From that, and I gathered that he probably got Vader's helmet during his own 'scavenging' and research of his grandfather. I figured, if he knew where Anakin came from, he'd probably have gone there as soon as he found out looking for clues. Not that he'd find any.  
> "So Rey knows more about Ben's past than Ben does?" Also yes. Artoo (who, contrary to popular belief, never had his memory wiped like C-3PO did) was able to record Ani's life from ages 9-24, whereas Sidious and Vader canonically had almost all information about Anakin Skywalker destroyed, so no one could trace Vader's lineage back to the Jedi. I stress that for a reason, it'll come up later.
> 
> As always, thank you all so much for the feedback! Kudos make me update faster, and any questions asked in the comments will be answered with the next chapter!


	13. in which our space nerds finally find out why they're on tatooine and it's probably not what anyone expects

Sleep ebbed slowly, painfully retracting its claws from Rey.  Her eyes refused to open, and her muscles ached, like she’d been in the same position for far too long.  Distantly, she wondered if she’d fallen asleep sitting up again, but she felt far too comfortable.

As consciousness slowly came to her, she realized she was on her side, her head comfortably nuzzled against a firm pillow, and she took a slow, deep breath.  It smelled strangely appealing, like sandalwood and ash, salt and clay.

Coming to, the pillow shifted beneath her head, and she realized all at once that it was moving.  Her eyes shot open despite their grainy protest, and she sat up, looking around wildly.

She’d been asleep against Ben, curled into his side with her head on his stomach.  She looked at him, lying back, half of his body in the sand with one arm propped beneath his head, the other on his hip, right next to where hers was resting lightly.

Pulling her fist back in a near-punch, she took a quick breath through her teeth, wanting to yell at him, before she realized he was still asleep.  His lips were parted the tiniest amount, taking deep, even breaths.  His hair was like a halo around his head, fanned out in the sand, a few stray pieces curled against his forehead.  He looked alarmingly youthful with his features relaxed like this.

He’s handsome, she thought, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks.  His face was marred only by the nasty scar, courtesy of Rey herself.  She trailed it down his neck until it disappeared under the collar of his tunic, but she noted with some amount of satisfaction that it had healed a bit since they’d been aboard the Supremacy together.

The memory came with that same guilt for all of the distress she’d caused him, despite the fact that he’d absolutely deserved it at the time.  Still, he’d have that reminder of their battle forever, the scar that stretched from his face down to the middle of his chest.  Like she’d branded him.

Lightly, she reached up, ghosting her fingertips down the length of the scar on his neck.

His eyelashes fluttered as he roused himself from sleep, and Rey moved quickly from her position leaned over him, pretending to gather supplies in her duffel as Ben sat up and wiped the sleep from his eyes.  He had a vaguely dazed look on his face, like he forgot for a moment where he was.  Then his eyes came to rest on her, and they widened, no doubt remembering their adventure from the day previous.

“Glad to see you sleep as well as eat,” she commented, glancing back at him.  “You’ve almost convinced me you truly are human.”

“Droids go into low power mode,” he pointed out, standing up with a slight limp and shaking any excess sand off of himself, and she chuckled.  His voice was a deep mumble first thing in the morning, hoarse with sleep, and she handed him the canteen.  He took a swig, before handing it back to her, shaking the loose sand from his hair with a frustrated huff.

“Not a big fan of the desert, are you, _Supreme Leader_?” she mused as she shook out the bedmat and began rolling it up.  He glanced at her through narrowed eyes before he picked up on her teasing tone.  It was almost relieving to have the banter back, after what transpired between them last night.  It had been a roller coaster, and she’d been so close to riding the ups and downs with him, but she held onto the shred of balance within her and projected it to him in hopes of calming his anger.  It seemed to have worked.

“I’d like it more if the sand didn’t get everywhere,” he replied, dusting off his tunic, as if that would help him.  “I don’t like sand.”

“How’s your leg?” she asked absently, those same words he spoke in her mind with a different voice behind them, though where she’d heard it eluded her.

“Fine,” he grumbled, still not terribly happy about the sand, it seemed.  Rey couldn’t help but laugh.  She’d spent so much of her life on Jakku that she’d been too young to remember when she finally stopped battling the tiny rocks.  It was a lost cause.

“Well,” she said, kicking sand into the hole where the embers of their fire still glowed faintly.  “Whatever brought me here is down there,” she pointed down the cliff, “and I have every intention of figuring out why the Force would be cruel enough to drag me back to another desert planet.”

He stared at her, eyes twinkling in the early morning light, a teasing smile stretching across her cheeks, accentuating the dimple he’d noticed and probably would never tire of seeing.  Ben sighed.

“Lead the way.”  He gestured for her, and she shouldered the duffel, grabbing her staff and setting off down the face of the cliff.

There were a series of steep roads that interconnected through this side of the trench.  It made the climb significantly longer, but Rey had no desire to stress Ben’s leg wound more than necessary.  The paths they traveled were narrow, having to walk sideways down some of the stretches.  Whenever they had to climb, she always made sure Ben went first, so she could catch him with the Force if he fell.  If he caught on to her plan, he never commented on it.

She nearly slipped once, catching herself on a foothold and hoisting herself back up, but she felt the caress of Ben’s Force as he shot out by instinct to catch her, so it seemed perhaps they had similar ideas.

Rey suggested they rest about halfway down, sharing a ration pack and dipping into the last liter of water she’d brought with her.  It’d be a long walk back to her X-Wing, but Ben’s Upsilon was significantly closer, and she hoped he’d give her a ride, despite not ever wanting to be caught dead on another First Order ship.

They were both drenched in sweat, probably individually cursing their choices of black clothing, which Ben passively commented on at one point during the last leg of their climb.

“You used to wear much lighter colors,” he said simply, and she looked down at her black tunic and pants.

“That was when I needed to blend into the sand,” she responded, panting slightly, her back flat against the cliff wall as they walked down the final steep stretch of land.  She looked back at him, shocked at how graceful he was despite his inordinately imposing frame.  He’d not slipped once, even a little.  And he was injured, on top of it.  “When I started running missions for the Resistance, it was more imperative that I blend into the dark.”  She eyed him up and down.  The clothes he wore now were the same basic tunic and pants combo he normally wore, although tailored a little differently.  “What about you?  Is black your most flattering color?”

He grimaced at her as she flitted down the last few feet of cliff, jumping and landing lithely at the base.  He followed, taking her jumps as steps.  “I haven’t always worn black.  My Jedi robes were traditional brown and tan.”

She obnoxiously trailed her eyes over him from head to toe, assessing him with a hand tucked beneath her chin, before shaking her head dramatically.  “Can’t picture it.”  He shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose, and she laughed, a loud and easy sound that echoed off the cliff walls as they walked toward the interruption in the sand they’d seen yesterday.

As they happened closer, Rey came to realize that they were approaching a hut, drenched thoroughly in sand.  The winds must have covered it nearly completely.

“This is it?” Ben asked, coming to stand up beside her.  She closed her eyes, reaching out and finding that the Force stood completely still around her, not even thrumming with life the way it had been the past few days.  The radar was gone, making her feel like she’d led Ben into the eye of the storm.

There was an echo of a Force signature here, buried beneath the sand, and she opened her eyes, nodding.  “Something’s in here.”  Ben watched her for a moment as she took a few steps back, reaching out physically.

“A hut,” Ben said sarcastically, and Rey shot him a glare before focusing back on the task at hand.

"Moving rocks,” she commented, mostly to herself, but Ben quirked an eyebrow.  “Just, a million tiny rocks instead of a few big ones.”  He watched her as she strained against the Force, attempting to move the sand away from the door to the hut.

“This is how you exhausted yourself,” he commented, momentarily breaking her concentration.  She looked at him incredulously.

“What are you talking about?”

“A few days ago,” he said, taking her hand of his own accord, trying to let her feel how he reached out, willing her to feel the differences in their approaches, “before we reconnected.  You overexerted yourself with the Force, using all of your energy in one day, didn’t you?”  Her eyes widened with the memory and with the difference, the ease in which Ben manipulated the Force to his will.

“How did you know that?” she asked, using her own Force manipulation to help him as he cleared the sand from around the hut.  It whirred around, twisting up like a tycoon, all of those millions of tiny rocks beautifully spinning to the other side of their enclosed area, glinting in the sun.  She tried to copy his technique, use the Force the way he did, as easy as breathing.

The hut was cleared, a cracked stairwell leading to a door submerged in the ground.  The walls of the clay hut were cracked with age as well, but there didn’t seem to be a terrible amount of damage to the framework.  She wasn’t too afraid that it would collapse on them and suffocate them.

“I felt it, too,” he finally responded, dropping her hand before she had the opportunity to feel his emotions.  “I’d gone to another planet to meet with my Knights, and as I waited for them, I was suddenly overcome with an exhaustion I haven’t felt since I was a padawan.  You were the only logical explanation.”

“Logical,” she scoffed, shaking her head before diverting her attention from the hut and looking up at him.  “You felt that?”  He nodded, glancing quickly at her.  “I... didn’t know.  I don’t know if I…”

“You shocked yourself, too, didn’t you,” he stated, more than asked.  Gesturing to her right arm.  “A day or two later.”  Her eyes widened, feeling the ghostly shockwaves traveling up her arm, suddenly amplified by him feeling them, as well.  He looked at her again before walking toward the hut, but she grabbed his arm and pulled him back, confusion swimming in her expression.

“What does it mean?” she asked, and he felt her sincerity and genuine confusion.  He simply shrugged.

“I’m sure we’ll figure that out later.  Let’s go.”

The hut was dusty, but surprisingly orderly for having been abandoned for an extended period of time.  Rey coughed a little, wishing she had her scarves from Jakku to keep the dust from her mouth.  She took short, light breaths through her nose, the way she’d been taught.

Ben didn’t seem to mind so much, his eyes gliding over the abandoned homestead with muted curiosity.

“What’s here?” he asked as Rey picked up a few nick knacks, some of them heavier with that ghostly Force signature than the others.

“I have no clue,” she said, looking around.  Someone had obviously lived here a number of years ago, someone who had Force capabilities.

There were still a few dirty cups stacked next to the sink, which had a large crack deep in the porcelain Rey was sure wasn’t there when the original owner left.  She was so afraid to touch anything, afraid it would crumble to dust in her hands.

Ben didn’t have such formalities.  He was rifling through these abandoned belongings like he owned them.  He found a closet and opened it, finding linens and clothes.  He reached in, pulling out a floor-length brown robe with a broad hood, various holes eaten into the material by vermin, and he raised an eyebrow at her.

“Jedi robes,” he stated simply, tossing the robe over the back of a dining chair.  Rey’s eyes widened as a few puzzle pieces began clicking together.  Did the man in her vision bring her to his old hut?  “Where did you bring us?”  It was rhetorical, and Rey didn’t answer.  He was eyeing the books that were lined on a top shelf, bringing one down and thumbing through the pages.  It was simply entitled “Moisture Farming”, and Ben grew bored quickly, setting it on the table.

“Do you not have the decency to put things back where you found them?” she hissed a whisper, almost afraid to talk in her normal voice.

"I don’t think the owner is coming back anytime soon to reprimand us,” he retorted, pulling down another book and thumbing through it.  This one was entitled “Tatooine Basic Fauna and Flora”, and he set it atop the other book.

“It still feels awfully disrespectful,” she said, moving toward the back of the hut where the sleeping quarters were.  The bed linens had been eaten through almost completely, just scraps of graying tan piled on a half-decayed mattress.

“Almost as disrespectful as standing in a dead man’s house,” Ben commented, and Rey shot him a look.  He looked down as Rey ventured further into the living space, looking for some sort of clue.  “Rey,” he called, and she whipped around as he lugged a large chest out from beneath the table.

She rushed back to his side as he heaved the box onto the table with a grunt, brushing the dust off the lid.  The thing was ornate and beautiful, sturdy metal with intricate designs laid out in hand-carved stitching across the lid and base.  It was locked, and she started looking around frantically for a key before Ben sighed, bringing his hand up and crushing the lock with the Force.  She gasped, resisting the urge to smack him as she picked the pieces of the lock away, setting them carefully off to the side.

The trunk was split into various compartments.  The top-most shelf was empty and she pulled it out, setting it carefully to the side as she rifled through the contents.  An ancient multi-tool sat on the next shelf, blackened with age and use, and she picked it up, testing the various tools.  It still seemed in perfect working condition and included a few aspects that her current multi-tool did not.  She shoved it into her hip pouch, reliving her scavenging days.

“What happened to respecting the dead?” Ben asked, and Rey glanced up at him sheepishly.

“You were right,” she said after a moment, returning to her rifling.  “They’re not around to use it.”

The crate housed another set of robes, these ones including the tunic and undershirts.  As she lifted them out she realized that they were burned, and they smelled vaguely of ash, like they’d been submerged in a fire somehow.  Setting those aside, she dug deeper.  She found an insignia she recognized from her texts back in her quarters on Barkhesh, a Jedi symbol, fitting roughly into her palm, the metal bronzed with age.

Ben picked it up out of her hands, turning it over curiously, and she stifled a laugh when she pictured the metal burning him, the light reacting to the darkness, like dropping a pan that had just been on an open flame.  He rolled his eyes when he looked at her, and she realized she’d projected that thought to him unintentionally.  Kriffing bond.  It wasn’t supposed to operate when they weren’t touching, was it?

She continued picking through various odds and ends, finding a couple of books and a small manual at the bottom that she lifted out.

“Look,” she said, setting them on the table.  Ben watched over her shoulder as she opened a Jedi textbook, finding various signatures of previous owners, the most recent one signed O.W.K.  She read the three letters a couple of times, hoping to have insight to the owner of the hut, before she remembered the conversation she’d had with Leia, what felt like a millennia ago.

“Ben Kenobi,” she breathed, taking a step back and looking at the dusty old hut.  Ben – her Ben – widened his eyes in realization, looking around with her.  “We’re in Ben Kenobi’s hut.”  She was merely stating the obvious, but it felt surreal, and she wanted to make sure that saying it out loud wouldn’t make it any more believable.

“I didn’t know he’d lived on Tatooine, as well,” Ben said, looking around at the various nick knacks and books with new eyes.

"He followed Luke here as an infant,” Rey said, and Ben spun around, staring at her with wide eyes.  She realized that this was some of that information she’d threatened to lord over him.  “To keep him safe.  Keep Darth Vader from finding out about him.”  Ben scoffed, shaking his head.            

"He should be so lucky,” he mumbled, and Rey shrugged such a statement off.  Ben didn’t know any better, and she didn’t want to hold that against him.  She wondered how different her path might be, if Anakin had never turned in the first place.  The brooding man she called her comrade would probably be nothing like he is.  Perhaps she’d still be on Jakku.  Perhaps they never would have even met.

For some reason, that thought stings, just a little.

She flips through the other book, then grabs the small manual.  It folds, rather than flips, becoming a large sheet of thick parchment paper Rey couldn’t believe hadn’t deteriorated.

She reaches out blindly, finding the back of Ben’s tunic and fisting her hand in the material to stop his continued exploration.  “This is it,” she says, practically shaking with excitement.  “This is why I’m here.  This is an instruction manual for how to build a lightsaber.”

Ben turned, peering over her shoulder at the large poster Rey was now holding.  He reads through the steps quickly.  It details how to make a pretty simple hilt, lightweight and durable, for defense over offense.  He thinks of his own saber, tucked against his side, and the detail and stamina that went into building a hilt around a cracked kyber crystal.

“This is how to build that lightsaber.”  He points to the bottom of the page, where a crudely-drawn hilt sat.

"Same concept,” Rey responded, delicately folding the paper back into its original shape and tucking it into her hip pouch.  She grabs the two books, as well, folding them into her duffel.  Ben stares at her for a moment as she begins packing the rest of the contents back into the chest.

“Aren’t you going to make a lightsaber?” he finally asked as she heaves the heavy chest up.  He reaches for it to help her, but she nudges him away with her elbow, practically dropping the thing on the floor.  It was heavier than she’d originally thought – probably because of the ease with which Ben seemed to have lifted it initially.

“What, here?  In the hut of a dead stranger?” she shook her head, looking around.  “It’s cramped and a little creepy, don’t you think?”  He looked at her like she was crazy, and she could tell that, no, he didn’t think that.

“Where, then?”

“I’ll take the manual back to the Resistance base and build it there.”  It was the simplest explanation, after all.  Ben watched her as she began methodically placing things back in their rightful place, destroying the evidence that anyone had touched this hut.  She knew it probably seemed completely unnecessary to him.

“What about the saberstaff?” he asked, his voice uncharacteristically quiet, even for him.

“I don’t even know where I’d get all the materials for one, let alone a second crystal.”  She shook her head.  The idea had been so enticing to begin with – building a two-sided blade she could handle as well as she handled her quarterstaff.

Said quarterstaff was suddenly pulled from her shoulder, and she turned around quickly, reaching for it.  It was instinct – this was her weapon, her defense, and the only thing she had against any attacks.

Ben grabbed her wrist as she brought her fist around, stopping her mid-punch before she even realized she’d sent it flying.  She jerked back out of his grasp, embarrassed at her forward attitude.  “Sorry,” she mumbled, but he was busy inspecting the staff.

“This will work,” he said after a moment.  “The metal is durable enough, it shouldn’t overheat.”  She stared at him, then at her quarterstaff.

“I can make a lightsaber out of this?” she asked as he handed it back to her.

“It’d be more durable than the broken pieces in your bag,” he said, brushing past her lightly and making his way through the hut, looking for something else.  “If you try and weld that metal back together, the hilt will explode, and probably take your hands with it.”

“Now you tell me,” she grumbled, watching him as he tore open drawers and rifled through shelves.  “What are you looking for?”

“I’m sure Obi-Wan had a lightsaber,” Ben replied.

“You don’t think he took it with him when he left this place?” she asked genuinely, but Ben sighed, standing up.

“Probably.”  He ran a hand through his hair, the way he seemed to when he was thinking, and she noticed that the bacta strips he still had wrapped around his knuckles were gray with dirt.  He followed her eyes, finally seeming to remember his bandages, and ripped them off, leaving the shredded pile on the table and revealing the mostly-healed wounds beneath.

“You said the planet you went to was mostly hollowed out?” she asked, shaking her head at his pile of discarded bandages before making her way out of the hut.  Ben followed after a final look around, either for his own satisfaction or for the potential of finding a discarded lightsaber lying around, she wasn’t sure.

“A few padawans couldn’t find any their first trip,” he said, shrugging.  “It was essentially a waste land.”  Rey thought about that, wondering if it’d even be worth a trip out there, or if she should just cut her losses and use pieces of her staff to make a new saber, like Ben recommended.  It was slightly uncomfortable, though, realizing she’d be without a staff at all.  The thing had been with her practically her whole life.  Updating it to include lightsaber blades was a fair trade, but getting rid of it altogether…

“Padawans,” Rey said, thinking aloud as she and Ben walked toward the dunes they’d come from.  The trip up would take more time than the trip down, but she didn’t know if Ben would want to make camp tonight or if he’d want to make the journey all the way back to his Upsilon so he could get away from her.  “Luke,” she breathed, and Ben looked at her, a little disgusted.

“Why even—“

“No, wait, Ben,” she said, grabbing his shirtsleeve and pulling him to a halt.  “ _Luke_ was a Jedi, Luke had a lightsaber, right?”

“It was green,” Ben recalled, seeing it countless times when he trained under his uncle, and then the final time, when it was held over him, ready to end his life.

“And if Ben Kenobi took his saber when he fled, I’ll bet Luke did too,” her eyes were wide with excitement, practically shaking him as she realized where she could get another crystal.  “I have to go back to Ahch-To!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO, who guessed Old Ben's hut? Anyone?  
> I wasn't expecting anyone to, honestly. Like I mentioned previously, it's not canon anymore, but there was a comic series that was released taking place between Episodes 5 and 6, so my knowledge of lightsaber building is based on that. But essentially what happened was, after Luke lost his lightsaber to Vader, he went to Obi-Wan's old hut, found the how-to manual, and built his saber literally on the floor of the hut (with the Force). Which is why his hilt is so similar to Obi-Wan's.  
> SO, the Force led Rey to Obi-Wan's hut to find that manual so she could build her own weapon. Because I firmly believe that this is something she has to do on her own.
> 
> Questions:  
> "Will Rey tell Kylo about Anakin's role in her quest?" Nah, she hasn't made the connection yet.  
> "Why was Ben so upset when he and Rey connected when they touched? Was it because he found out how much she wanted to take his hand in the throne room?" Ah, no. I'm sorry if that was confusing. But Kylo "Anger Is My Only Emotion" Ren just had all of his feelings put on display without his consent, so he's a little miffed at the Force for just blatantly disregarding his need for privacy and showing everything to the one person in the galaxy he cares about even a little bit.  
> "Do you always refer to Kylo as 'Ren'?" Ok kids sit back we're about to get really candid here. Hi, my name is Trish, I'm twenty-four-years old, I work in sales, my favorite color is green, and I think Kylo is the dumbest name in the galaxy. Honestly, I hate it lol. When I first began this story, I referred to him as Kylo and the story didn't have the flow I wanted, so I went back and switched it and liked it better. Sorry if that's confusing for anyone, but I always triple-check my work to make sure I haven't accidentally referred to Ben as Rey or vice-versa. I understand that Ren is more of a title, and it'd be the same as calling Vader or Papa Palpy "Darth", but I digress. All of the Knights bear the name of Ren (Kerran Ren, Chrinda Ren, Jayce Ren (by the way did anyone catch the familial relationship between Ben and Jayson?))
> 
> As always, kudos make me update faster! Any questions asked in the comments will be answered with the next update. I love you guys, you make me feel incredible about this story. Thank you all so much!


	14. in which our space nerds are dumb again, one moreso than the other

Ren knew Rey was exhausted.  They’d been walking back all day and night, but they ran out of food this evening and their water was running dangerously low.  He didn’t want either of them to risk starving or dehydration out in the middle of the desert, so he urged her on.

If he’d mapped the distance correctly in his head, they’d reach his ship about mid-morning, and could refuel and hopefully shower all of this horrible sand off.  It was _everywhere_ , which was a testament, seeing how difficult his clothes were to get in and out of.

Ren was exhausted, as well.  The injury in his leg had reopened quite some time ago, but he didn’t tell Rey, knowing she’d insist on stopping to apply more bacta to it.  It would eventually stop bleeding, and he could wash it more carefully aboard his Upsilon.

“I’m about a mile outside of Mos Eisley,” she said after he asked.  “At least, I hope I’m still there.”

“We can get you fuel reserves there,” he commented, and she looked at him from the corner of her eye as they walked.

“I don’t recall ever agreeing to your offer,” she said.

“Neither do I,” he responded, and though she tried to hide it, he caught her smirk behind her hand.

They finished off the rest of the water just as the second sun began to rise, which was a mistake.  An hour later, the suns high in the sky, both of them were completely drenched in sweat.  It was hotter today than it had been the past three days they’d spent together, and Ren couldn’t wait to get off this planet and never come back.  He had no idea how Rey could have lived her entire life in a desert.  Three days and he was done with it.

The Upsilon was on the distant horizon, and Rey picked up the pace, seemingly as eager as he to get back to some amount of normalcy.  He’d never admit it, but his leg ached terribly, and he was using as little of the Force as possible to keep himself upright.

Finding her already in the middle of the desert seemed like a blessing in disguise.  No one had come to ransack his ship, and everything seemed in working order as he punched in the code to lower the ramp.  Rey stood just outside, looking suddenly uncomfortable.  Ren stopped halfway up the ramp to look at her, and he didn’t even need the bond to see the emotion written all over her face.

“You can come inside,” he finally said after taking an extra moment to study her.  “I don’t think the ship will eat you.”

“You don’t know that for certain,” she called, eyeing the sleek black exterior uncertainly.  He turned and walked up without her, assuming she’d follow on her own time.

As he sat, drinking water, Rey finally made her way up, looking around the interior curiously.  She looked incredibly out of place, a beacon of dirty light in the dark interior.  He tossed her the canteen, and she took it gratefully, sitting in the co-pilot’s chair and practically chugging the contents of the bottle.

She took stock of the ship slowly, and he watched her take it all in.  The main cabin was where they sat now, side by side in the pilot and co-pilot chairs.  There was a door to the sonic shower near the rear of the ship, with another door on the side of the cabin that led to the interior quarters, a single bed tucked into the wall.  There was storage space off to the right of her seat where he kept nutrition bars and water.  He got up, recovering his near-collapse well after putting weight on his leg as he grabbed her one of the bars.  She ate the entire thing in three bites, and he had to stop himself from genuinely smiling.

“It’s smaller than I expected it to be,” she commented after a moment.  “But just as dark.”

He reached behind himself and hit a button, turning the interior lights on, and her eyes widened.  She was so surprised all the time, he mused, opening a nutrition bar for himself and eating it quickly.

“Alright,” she said, clapping her hands together and turning toward him.  “Will you take me to my X-Wing so I don’t have to walk?”  He shrugged his agreement.

“A mile outside of Mos Eisley?”

“On the western side,” she verified, and Ren started going through the preflight checklist to make sure everything was, in fact, in working order.  Rey dropped her duffel next to the seat, automatically beginning the co-pilot list, and Ren watched her curiously out of the corner of his eye.  This ship was easy to navigate on his own, which he normally did, so it was a little strange to have someone else performing the remedial tasks to get it in the air.

If she always took that chair, he surmised that it might be something he could get used to.

A few minutes later, they lifted off, the Upsilon rocking slowly as it took to the air.  Rey marveled at the smoothness of the ride.  Apparently, she’d been afraid her X-Wing wouldn’t even make it out of atmo, which made him have to bite his tongue.  He didn’t want her flying off in a death trap.

“There’s my ship,” she pointed out a few minutes later, to the dainty, dated X-Wing sitting in the sand.  Ren passed it.  “Hey!  You can drop me down there!”

“I’ll take us closer into town to get fuel,” he replied, which was perhaps half of the truth.  He honestly wasn’t too keen on continuing to walk on his leg; it ached more now that he’d rested it.  He also wasn’t sure what was going to happen once they got her fuel reserves.  Did that end this strange, unintentional rendezvous with her?  Would he go back to the Ascendancy, finally, and let her finish the construction of her lightsaber on that uncharted planet where Skywalker had been hiding?

Were that the case, they’d be enemies once more, on opposite sides of a war, instead of companions.

He wasn’t sure if he was ready for that yet.

“You’re going to take us into a gang town in the galaxy’s most recognizable ship,” she said, sitting back and crossing her arms.  “We’ll be blasted out of the air.”

“They may be a planet of thugs, but they know better than to upset the First Order,” Ren responded, but she stared at him with her narrowed eyes, and he sighed, landing them about halfway between her ship and the town.  “A half mile okay?”

“I suppose,” she said, her voice still betraying some amount of anger.  She dug through her duffel until she found a scarf, pulling it out and undoing her braid to tie her hair back into a sloppy bun.  Then, she wrapped the scarf around her face and hair, leaving just her eyes uncovered.

“Let’s go,” she said, her voice muffled by the fabric, and Ren stood to follow her, wincing only slightly as his leg attempted to send him sprawling flat on his stomach.  He had no mask to wear, but he could assume that his face wasn’t nearly as recognizable to these people as his mask was, anyway.

They made their way off the ship and toward town, his leg loosening up the more time he spent on it.  Ren felt incredibly weak – he’d been shot by a bowcaster and had still managed to nearly take out the scavenger girl he’d captured.  After taking out her traitorous Stormtrooper friend, that is.  And yet his leg was screaming every step he took.  He wondered, absently, if he’d been poisoned, but he doubted it.  Perhaps they’d laced the arrowhead with some sort of weakening agent.  He was sure there were plenty of brews the Raiders had come up with to overpower their opponents.

“What are you thinking about?” Rey asked, looking at him from where she stood next to him.  “You’ve got this weird mix of pride and anger about you.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he replied.  They were coming up on the town.  “Were you planning on stealing fuel, or paying?”

“Um,” she said stopping completely with her eyes wide.  “I… don’t have any money.”

“Of course not,” he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“It wasn’t exactly at the top of my priority list,” she stressed.  “Where would I even get money from, anyway?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, turning.  After a moment, she followed him as the sand turned into a paved road beneath their feet.  They waded slowly into the center of town, not wanting to draw attention to themselves.

Mos Eisley was a bustle of activity.  Shop keepers and port owners were screaming at one another, various beings from across the galaxy making their way this way and that, picking up supplies, bartering.  Ren was used to places like this, but Rey was caught trying to look in every direction at once, a new type of wonder on her face.  Ben watched her for a moment before she caught his eye.

“Even on the busiest days, Niima never looked like this.  There’s so many people.”  Her eyes danced with excitement.  He was quite familiar with Niima Outpost, having visited once during his research about the battle of Jakku.  It was a dismal place, full of rags made to look like tents, more a junkyard than a shopping plaza.  Mos Eisley was full of stone huts, built out of the clay of the desert to resemble actual structures. 

He smiled, the tiniest amount, but Rey stopped, and even with the scarf covering her face, he could see her mouth was agape.

“Ben Solo,” she gasped.  “I didn’t know you could smile.”  Ren immediately straightened his face, and she laughed.  “Over here, I think they’re selling fuel in this building.”

They walked into one of the huts, congested with people, and Rey reached out to grab Ben’s arm.  They were shoulder-to-shoulder with a hundred other beings, calling out barters for ship parts in languages Ren had never heard.  It was so loud.

Ben scanned the area, looking to see if anyone had taken notice of them, and caught the eyes of a masked being, standing on the other side of the shop.  He couldn’t tell if it was looking at them or not, and that made him uncomfortable.  His spine prickled with tension.

“There!” Rey shouted over the noise, pointing toward a booth near the back that was lined with fuel reserves.  They pushed through the throng of bodies together, the number of people condensing the deeper they went into the shop.  Ren hated it; there were far too many people pressed against him.

He felt Rey’s hand slide down his arm until she was gripping his hand, and he could feel how overwhelmed she was by the number of people, as well.  There was nowhere they could be without being against someone else.

Finally, after shuffling through the crowd, they made it to the counter, and Ben held up two fingers, not willing to shout over the cackle of noise.  The Quarran man behind the counter nodded, turning to grab two from the shelf behind him, then getting distracted by another customer.

He turned, taking in crowd once more, and caught the eyes again of that masked person.  They’d moved closer, keeping their distance, but close enough to keep tabs.  It was a bounty hunter, it had to be.  No one else would be taking such stock of either of them.  He watched as the hunter looked away, then pulled a comm to its mouth and spoke low into it.

Glancing around, Ren noticed another masked figure on the other side of the shop, also pulling out a comm and speaking into it.

He bent down next to Rey.  “We have to go.”

“We haven’t gotten our fuel yet,” she protested as he tugged her hand back toward the entrance.

“We’ve been noticed,” he retorted, moving around the pressed bodies with her in tow, trying to get them out of the shop.

“Ben, the fuel!” she shouted, and he realized she couldn’t hear him over the cacophony of noise.  He pulled her closer to his side, willing the thought from his mind into hers, trying to show her what he saw.  He saw her eyes widen with understanding, and together they pushed through the crowd, trying to get out of the center of the hub.

The anger started rising in his chest, and Rey squeezed his hand, feeling the change in his emotions as they waded through the river of people until they got to the exit.  He reached for his saber, and she yanked his hand down.

“Act natural,” she hissed as they walked out onto the street, and he had to resist the urge to roll his eyes and pull himself out of her grasp.  He glanced back, watching the two masked beings as they exited just a few feet behind them.

 _There are two behind us_ , he said, straight into her mind, feeling her back stiffen at the sudden intrusion before she relaxed.  She glanced up at him, her eyes narrowed.

“Well I guess that’s happening now,” she grumbled, her voice even more muffled by the scarf, but her cheeks were raised with what he could assume was a smile.  He didn’t want to lead them back to his ship, afraid they’d knock it out of the sky, so he turned them down an alleyway, reiterating his plan to lose them before they went back to the Upsilon.  She nodded her assent, narrowing her eyes in focus, pulling her quarterstaff into her hand.

“What about my X-Wing?” she whispered, and he shook his head, knowing anything he said would turn into an argument.

“If we take this alley, it’ll empty out into the outskirts of town, and we can circle back to the ship.”

“For how long?” she asked, and he shrugged, not exactly sure of the answer.  The fist that wasn’t holding Rey’s hand clenched.  He hated running away, preferring to face whoever it was that was after his life head on.

But this wasn’t about his life.

The alley in front of them was suddenly cut off with two bodies.  They were walking toward Ben and Rey, and as soon as they made eye contact, the hunters picked up the pace.

He ushered her through a side alley that narrowed between two buildings.

“Aren’t we going to fight?” she asked.

“That’ll draw a lot of unnecessary attention to us.”  He glanced back, seeing the four hunters gaining on them.  “The last thing we need is to alert every bounty hunter in the city that the scavenger who killed the First Order’s Supreme Leader is running around.”

“You could take the bounty off my head,” she suggested as they turned down another alley that lead them back into the main streets.

“That’ll look suspicious,” he replied, and she drew closer to him.

“Not if the Order is convinced you killed me.”  He took a slow breath.

 _I’ll pretend you didn’t say that_ , he said to her across the bond, afraid saying anymore out loud would be caught by the hunters, who were barely a few yards behind them now.

Just as they approached the gate at the edge of the city, Ren heard the rustle of fabric behind them, the click of a blaster, and he whipped around, lightsaber drawn just as it fired.

He caught the bullet in mid-air with the Force, and it hissed angrily, crackling as his saber did.  Rey was by his side in a moment, staff out, as the other three hunters drew two more blasters and a First Order-issued control baton.

“The scavenger bounty belongs to us, Force user,” one of the hunters called, his voice masked with an emulator.

 _They don’t recognize you_ , Rey said across the bond, and he nodded, still holding the blaster shot.  He tossed it to the side casually, and it hit the side of a building.  She watched in mild disbelief.  _You have to teach me how to do that._

“Later,” he replied out loud as the bounty hunters trained their weapons on Rey.  They were outnumbered, four to two, but none of them seem particularly well trained.  The three with blasters would likely focus their attention on restraining him, allowing the baton-wielding fourth to stun Rey so they could kill her.  He could take the three, rather quickly, so long as they didn’t—

 _You get the weapons, I’ll charge_ , she said, and he looked at her.

“What?” he asked as she began running toward the people who wanted to kill her for money.  He barely registered her attack as the hunters took aim.  The three blasters fired at the same time, all trained on her, and Ben jumped into action, hitting one back to the hunter and shoving the other two to the side, just barely.  Rey brought her staff down against the hunter with the baton as Ren ripped the blasters out of their hands.  The one that had his blast bolt returned was hit square in the chest.

Rey let out a primal yell as she brought down her staff on the baton hunter’s head, and Ren slashed his saber across the midsection of the one who spoke with the voice emulator, turning to catch the other with the Force as they tried to run away.  Rey whipped her staff around, bringing it against the ribs of the hunter Ren was holding.

A small crowd had gathered around the confrontation, and as soon as Ren let the hunter go, allowing him to crumple to the ground, he turned around and stalked out of the gate.

Rey jogged to catch up to him, glancing back over her shoulder as she pulled the scarf down away from her face.  “That was faster than I expected it to be.”  Ren didn’t respond, walking quickly.  “Well, don’t seem too happy,” she mumbled.  He stayed quiet, watching the Upsilon get bigger on the horizon.  She reached out, brushing her hand against the back of his, and he pulled away, glaring down at her.

“You’re angry,” she mused as they approached the Upsilon.  “Wait, what about the fuel?  And my X-Wing?”

“Leave it,” he practically snarled, whipping around as eight more bounty hunters were sprinting out of the gate.  The Upsilon’s ramp was still down, and they ran up it together as the blaster fire began raining down on them.

He’d left the ship idling, and he punched the dials expertly, smoothly lifting off.  Rey immediately took to the co-pilot’s chair, running through her checklist as they lifted quickly out of atmo.

“Type in the coordinates to your planet,” he said, turning and standing as the ship shook, exiting the gravitational pull of Tatooine.

“We’re going?” she called after him, and he didn’t respond, hitting the button to get into the ‘fresher.

Ren had to fight the urge to dent the ‘fresher walls, but his hands ached with how hard he was clenching his fists, knuckles turning white against the already pale skin.  He cursed himself once more for destroying his gloves, wishing now more than ever he had some barrier against her.

Every time she grabbed his hand, touched his skin, the bond opened like a vault, exposing all of his emotions to her.  The turmoil, the hate, the anger – all open to her.  And she _calmed_ him somehow, like rubbing bacta over an open wound, helping the flesh of his psyche knit itself back together.  Whenever she was around, any and everything that made him Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader, Master of the Knights of Ren just washed away.  Leaving him as Nobody from Nowhere.

And now, all of these new experiences were happening – communication without speaking, being able to feel the physical manifestations of one another.  Not only had the bond not dissipated in their months apart, it appeared to have gotten stronger, practically yanking them together as they struggled against it, until he was landing his Upsilon in the desert of some dismal planet in order to find her for no other reason than she _asked_ him to.  Until they were traversing the extremely dangerous streets of an anarchical society, being spotted by bounty hunters that nearly—

He ended the thought, unwilling to acknowledge what almost happened.

Ben sighed, staring at himself in the mirror.  His hair was a mess, his tunic rumpled with dirt and sand.  His pants were sticky with blood, the makeshift bandage Rey had made a disgusting mix of gray and the rusty color of dried blood.

He shrugged out of his clothes, throwing them in the sonic washer, before slamming the ‘fresher shower on.

At least he wasn’t covered in sand anymore.

\------------------------------------------------------

Her personal quarters were suffocating this evening, and Leia had a hard time staying within them.  Worry was a feeling she’d grown accustomed to over the years.  When he was a child, she’d worried about Ben, being left alone as often as he was.  When he’d go gallivanting through space on stupid missions, she’d worry about Han, who would be gone for weeks at a time, which caused her to worry more about Ben, growing up with a father barely present half the time.

She’d worried more when Luke started his temple and offered to train Ben, because they both saw that darkness that had taken root in his mind, and she was afraid being away from her might make it fester.  Luke had assured her that his teachings would be beneficial.  If there was truly darkness, perhaps he could dispel it altogether, if not teach Ben to control it.  And, when she’d made the decision to send Ben away on her own, because Han was gone on some mission, she’d been worried about the fight they’d inevitably have when he got back, because she was letting Luke fill their son’s head with all his “religious mumbo jumbo”.

And, when her greatest fears had come to light, when she’d answered Luke’s distress call and traveled to his temple to get the full story from her twin, who had recited the incident robotically, already halfway lost to the galaxy, she’d worried about how this might affect Han.  Her husband, who’d been unable to deal with the repercussions of having Ben, a Force-user, a Darksider, as a son, and had left her alone once again.

Then, as she realized what truly happened, how Senator Snoke had managed to infiltrate her careful parentage and Luke’s extensive tutelage, whispering that darkness straight into Ben’s mind, she’d worried – rightfully so – over the fate of the New Republic she’d constructed from the ashes of the Empire’s long-forgotten democracy.

More often than not, her worries came to light, and Luke used to muse that she must have some Force-induced premonitions.  She’d scoffed at him, telling him that he got all of the magic in the family, but they both knew that wasn’t true.  She’d never been trained, but Leia Organa knew the Force, even as a young child.

So now, as she sat awake in her chambers, the worry pounding in her mind over Rey, who’d run off three nights ago, taking an X-Wing and leaving any possible communication or tracking systems behind, she worried again.  Because it was so unlike the girl to just leave, to defy orders, to steal any of the few supplies the Resistance was able to call their own.

She’d noted the changes in Rey over the months she’d spent as part of the Resistance.  In the beginning, it seemed easier for her, before Leia had intercepted the bounty on her head and grounded her.  The General knew to proceed with caution, telling her about it, and about her son’s new role amongst the First Order.  The girl had taken it about as well as Leia expected, lashing out, begging to get back into the sky.  Leia had felt terrible, being so cruel, using a cheap shot to keep Rey from running off and getting herself killed.

She could nearly feel, at times, the pounding in Rey’s temples, the headaches she seldom complained about but constantly felt.  There was something else there, too, deeper in Rey’s mind than Leia could see.  It made Rey sad, though, Leia knew.  Something she dwelled upon in her late nights spent under the stars outside the base.  Leia knew, of course, that Rey ventured out on her own, but she’d already taken so much from the poor girl.  She couldn’t take her nights of solitary, too.

Allowing her to rebuild the radio tower had been Leia’s way of quiet compromise, letting her go off on her own, do something that was incredibly needed and well-received.  She wasn’t totally blind to the disconnect Rey seemed to feel from the rest of the Resistance, and Leia knew some of them were a little intimidated by her.  A Force-user, just like Kylo Ren, they’d whispered under their breaths, until Leia chastised them for it, hoping Rey could bridge the distance and make friends outside of just Finn and Poe.

It had never happened, and Leia felt terrible.

So, she sent her off, hoping a few days on her own could recalibrate whatever it was Rey was confused about within her.  And when she’d come back, she’d seemed so much more at ease, and Leia was exalted that perhaps her quiet musings had worked after all.  Rey didn’t seem to be in pain, a light skip in her step that had been notably absent since she’d been grounded.  Whatever she’d found out there, Leia was thrilled it had come back with her.

The next day, she was gone.

Leia had woken up, probably mere minutes after Rey broke atmo, but she couldn’t be certain.  No one had even noticed a ship departure.

“I was patrolling the other end of the base,” Rose Tico had said, and Leia picked up on the almost robotic quality of her voice.  She’d narrowed her eyes as Rose continued, “I didn’t even realize anyone had left,” but didn’t comment on it, understanding instantly what had happened.

Rose caught Rey trying to leave.

Rey used the Force to manipulate Rose into forgetting.

For some reason, that made Leia’s chest ache.

She’d seen Luke use the Force to manipulate people.  At one point, they’d all gone out together, sometime after the battle on Endor’s moon, and Han had conveniently forgotten his wallet after they’d ordered a number of drinks.  Luke, in his drunken stupor, had insisted that he could pay the tab, then had sloppily convinced the bar keep to forget they were ever there.  At the time, it had been hilarious, but Luke had felt so bad he’d gone back a week later, bought a single drink, and tipped the price of their tab.

The memory makes Leia smile, despite the ache in her chest at the loss of her brother.  As much as it hurt losing Han, the love of her life, losing Luke made her feel like she’d lost a part of herself.  Han was her husband, but Luke was her best friend.  Whenever she and Han were having issues, Luke was there, sensing her distress and coming to hold her as she cried, because he’d left again and she was expected to stay and take care of their newborn baby, and watching him leave killed her every time.

And now, Rey was using such techniques on her fellow Resistance members to run away to Force knows where, and that worry had bloomed like a spring flower, rooting itself deep in Leia’s heart and feeding off her blood.

She’d asked Artoo first, but the droid had no answers, beeping dismally when it couldn’t help them track the young Jedi down.  Leia had stayed up a full twenty-four standard hours, waiting for Rey to reach out, to at least let them know she was okay, but no transmissions came.  The anxiety at her abrupt disappearance had been mounting as the minutes ticked by with no updates.

Resigning herself, Leia stepped out into the hall, making her way down to the transmission room.  Connix had been up all night, waiting for word not only from Rey, but from any of their potential sympathizers, and Leia intended on relieving her to sleep.

“General!” Poe shouted as soon as her door slid shut behind her.  He was standing in the doorway of the main conference room.  “We intercepted transmissions from a bounty hunter.”  Her eyes widened, and she walked down the hall toward him, unable to move terribly quickly these days.

The room was a bustle of activity, Resistance flitting back and forth from one radio to another, reading transmissions, trying to hack into the First Order database, getting messages from their various fleets out in the galaxy.

Finn was pacing wildly, his fingernails already chewed to nubs, but he couldn’t seem to pull himself away.  She set a hand on his shoulder as she walked up beside him, looking at Poe and urging him silently to continue.

“She was spotted on Tatooine.”  Poe took a slow breath as he read, then exhaled in relief.  “She escaped.”

The tension in the room snapped, almost audibly, and it would have been funny if the situation hadn’t been so dire.

“What’s she doing on _Tatooine_?”  Finn asks, incredulous.  “I thought she wanted to get away from desert planets.”  Leia thinks back to their conversation, about Anakin Skywalker, her father by birth alone.

“She was looking for answers,” Leia says, her eyes on the datapad Poe is holding.  He’s still skimming the transmission, and his eyes widen.

“She was with another Force user, that’s how she escaped,” he breathes, and everyone is quiet for a moment before the questions are thrown around in a frenzy.  Leia has to sit.

“Who else could she have come across that can use the Force?” Finn asks, his voice rising above the twelve other conversations, and he looks like he wants to pull his own hair out in frustration.  “We have to go after her!”

“Come now,” Leia chastises him, shaking her head.  “You really think she’d still be there, after being attacked?  She’s smarter than that.”

“What’s she doing there in the first place?” Rose asks.  Then, her eyes widen as possibilities jump through her mind.  “Is she looking for other Force users?  To help us?”  The feasibility of such a statement is low, but everyone is talking over one another, and Leia wouldn’t interject even if she could.

She knows better.

And, quietly, so small she barely even recognizes it, that hope blooms in her chest that she thought she’d quelled months ago, after Luke had died, right in the middle of the worry.

Unable to help herself, Leia reaches out, willing it to be true, as she quietly whispers to herself.  An improbability, an impossibility, but that hope is alive within her nonetheless, and she knows it’s staying not matter what she does.

“Ben.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Normally I don't update until after work on Tuesdays, but I got sick last night with a bad case of the throwing-up-fish-tacos and called in today, so this chapter is coming like eleven hours early. Yay!  
> There were no questions to answer this time around! I'm wondering if that means the story is doing well to explain itself, which makes me happy.  
> Anyway, here's a bit of a "cut scene" with some Leia sprinkled in. This story isn't just about our nerds, remember. Other things are happening over the galaxy as Everyone's Favorite Supreme Leader™ and Self-Proclaimed Not-A-Jedi™ are gallivanting around being dumb and doing dumb things. I thought it important to include a bit of that information, as well.
> 
> No, Leia doesn't KNOW that Rey is with Ben, she just assumes.
> 
> As always, I really, truly appreciate the feedback I'm getting on this story. I mean, 350 kudos?? That's incredible, guys, especially because I never really considered that this story would gain any traction. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. And the comments warm me down to my blackened soul. I freaking love you guys, truly. I'm trying to schedule updates for Tuesdays and Fridays (US Central Time) to give you a bit more consistency. Keep the positivity coming though, because it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling and makes me want to do my best to make this story everything you guys hope it to be.
> 
> Next chapter: oh come on I wouldn't give anything away, guys.


	15. in which our space nerds have to spend 3 days alone on a ship together

Rey stared after Ben long after he’d resigned himself to the ‘fresher, unable to figure out why he was so angry.  She’d attempted to steal that information from him, which she knew was a cheap shot, but it all seemed to have stemmed from nowhere.  Then, he wouldn’t even let her touch him, despite the fact that they’d held hands practically the entire time they were in Mos Eisley.

Which she would never admit had felt nice.  Never.

She sighed, dropping her head into her hands.  She’d somehow managed to mess this up again, just as she had before, and she was trying desperately not to be angry with herself, or with him for shutting her out.

He didn’t come out of the ‘fresher until she’d eaten a nutrition bar and downed nearly half a liter of water.  He didn’t make eye contact with her, sitting in the pilot’s chair with his own nutrition bar.  He plucked her bottle of water from the floor, taking a few swigs and eating the bar quickly.  He studied the coordinates she’d typed in that would take them to Ahch-To, not even replying when he saw that it would be a three-day trip to the unknown regions of the galaxy.

He was clean, wearing a different tunic, slightly longer than his last one, but his shirtsleeves and pants all looked the same.  He was, however, walking slightly better, so she imagined he’d managed to clean and treat his wound again.  She hadn’t commented on his limping, unwilling to hurt his pride, but it hadn’t evaded her notice.

She kept glancing at him, waiting for him to acknowledge her, but he stared out at the stars as they streaked by, his chin rested against his palm on the dash.

“Do you mind if I use the ‘fresher?” she asked, and he cast her a sideways glance, nodding once and not speaking.

She stared at him for a long moment while he returned his attention to the galaxy as it whipped by them.  Then, she got up, setting her duffel down and rifling through it to grab her bedmat and linens and taking them into the ‘fresher, tossing them in the sonic wash.  She looked at herself in the mirror, hair in a bun with tendrils falling around her face, dirty scarf around her neck, clothes almost too dusty to even be considered black anymore.  She pulled the tie from her hair, letting it fall down, before slowly undressing and throwing those in the washer, as well.  She was afraid she’d leave a layer of dust on the floor, rolling around in the desert for three days like they had been.

Shaking out her hair, Rey climbed into the ‘fresher, reveling in the wash, despite the fact that this ship only had a sonic shower.  Though she’d been fine with spending days in the sand, she was unbearably grimy once she got out of the dirt.  She felt like she shed ten pounds of dust just from her hair alone.

She sighed, leaning her head against the cool tile wall, noting how it, too, was black.  It was such a common theme, as though the First Order needed to use the absence of color to instill fear.

She thought to the man sitting just outside the ‘fresher, silently seething in his own anger, and remembered fondly the conversation they’d had about his clothing choices.  They’d been so synchronized the past two days, the banter between them coming so easily, so _naturally_ , the way it was meant to.  It had to be meant to be.  How else could either of them explain what had happened?

When they were alone, whether it be from across the galaxy through the bond or quietly sneaking off to some desert planet in the Outer Rim, the rest of the world faded away.  When the Resistance and the First Order weren’t factors, when it was just Rey and Ben, it was so easy.  So simple.  They fell together like puzzle pieces.  Stars, she’d even seen him _smile_ , and she knew him well enough to know that such a gesture didn’t come lightly from him.

As soon as the politics were brought back into it, as soon as the First Order’s bounty came back to fruition, he’d shut down.  Wouldn’t let her touch him, wouldn’t open the bond so she could see what was on his mind.  And she knew he’d never verbally share that information, he was way too brash.

She groaned, shutting the shower off and exiting the stall.  She pulled her clothes from the washer, as well, noting that there was still a gash in her tunic from where she’d fought off the Tusken Raiders, and dug through one of the cabinets until she found a small sewing kit.  She pulled her breast band and underwear on, then her pants and socks and her arm wraps, kneeling on the ground and quickly stitching up her tunic.  It was a half-assed job, but it would hold until she could repair it properly when she got back to the Resistance base.

When she got back…

With a sigh, she pulled the tunic over her head, throwing her tabard on over that, before pulling out her bedmat and linens, rolling them up carefully.  She knew she was stalling.  With a slow breath, she walked out of the ‘fresher.

Ben was still sitting in the pilot’s chair, though he’d taken a more relaxed position.  Rey walked over quietly, sitting next to him and folding her supplies back into her duffel.  He didn’t look up, sifting through messages on a datapad.

“Anything interesting going on out there?” she asked, trying to grab his attention.

“Besides the various bounty hunter messages blasting that you were seen on Tatooine, nothing, really.”  She felt the sting of his words, as he’d probably intended.  He sighed and dropped the datapad into its compartment next to his chair.

“You’re angry.”  It wasn’t a question, and she stared at him though he still refused to meet her eye.  His eyes were narrowed as he looked out the transparisteel canopy, not really seeing the stars as they rushed by.  She took a deep breath, shaking her head.  “Look, I’m not going to make you talk to me, but we are stuck together, at least for the next few days.  You’re welcome to drop me on Ahch-To, and I can find my own way back to the Resistance base.”

Finally, he looked at her, and she could tell he was resisting the urge to roll his eyes.  Something he’d done a few times the past couple of days.  Another one of those personality traits she’d never gotten the chance to see before.

“I’m not abandoning you without a ship.”  He watched her for a moment as she took a slow breath and looked away.

“A comm radio, then,” she said with a nod, looking at him from the corner of her eye, but he wasn’t biting the faux argument.  He was watching the stars again.  Her heart felt heavy in her chest, and if she reached out to him with the Force, she knew she’d be met by nothing more than a wall of his anger.  She wasn’t willing to risk feeling that, and her hand flinched toward his of its own accord before she reigned it in.

She shook her hair out to pass the time, pulling some of it back to braid before sighing and giving up.  She took stock of the ship’s progress toward Ahch-To, then stood up, reaching into her duffel to grab her bedmat.  The hours spent walking coupled with being attacked by bounty hunters suddenly weighed on her all at once, and her eyelids began closing of their own accord.

“There’s a bed in the private quarters you can use,” he said, not even turning to face her.  She looked back at him, nodding, before walking back.

The bed was small, suitable for one person, and probably the only thing aboard this ship not drenched in black.  It was a dull gray, instead, which was a slight improvement.  Her limbs suddenly felt so heavy as she sat, not even bothering to pull the blanket back.

Asleep before her head hit the pillow once more.

... 

She woke up later with the sense that a pretty good chunk of time had passed.  Her eyes were heavy still, begging her to fall into slumber again, but she brought her hands up to rub the sleep from them instead.  She opened them slowly, sitting up with a yawn.

A bundle of black was across the small room from her, startling her for a moment, before she realized it was Ben, curled up on her bedmat, sleeping.  He’d offered her his bed, despite being so ridiculously angry at her, and then resigned himself to the floor.  For that, she felt awful.

As quietly as possible, she stood up from the bunk, meaning to tip-toe around him but instead taking a moment to look at him.  Unlike the peaceful expression he’d had on his face the last time she’d seen him sleep, he now looked tormented, like he was having a bad dream.  He tossed once, stayed a few moments, then turned over once more, grunting.  She bent down next to him.

Nightmares.  She wondered distantly if he had them often, before realizing she already knew the answer.  The circles were almost always his most prominent feature, besides the scar.  No wonder he never seemed to sleep.

Tentatively, unable to stop herself, she reached out, trailing her fingertips across the knuckles of his hand.  He took a deep breath at the contact, startling her.  As she pulled away, afraid she’d woken him, his breath caught.  So, she laid her hand flat against his, her palm pressing into his fingers, watching in awe as his expression smoothed out, peaceful once more.

He looked regal, almost, lying there, losing years of stress evidence in his unconscious state.  It endeared her to him in a way she hadn’t expected.  Son of a princess, grandson of a queen.  He looked it in these moments, every bit the prince he was.  She wanted to brush the hair back of his forehead, but was afraid to wake him, so she held back, urging herself to be satisfied with her hand against his.

Something within her unwound slowly, cautiously, the tendrils of it reaching toward him.  It breathed against the back of her neck, tickling her spine like a breeze, as it wrapped around him like a cocoon, tightening against their entwined hands.

Something within him reached back.

She stayed for a few minutes longer before standing up and leaving the private quarters, unaware of the exchange that had just taken place between them.  She argued with herself about waking him, letting him know the bed was available, but she knew he’d stay up.

Rey rifled through the drawer for another nutrition bar and was beside herself to see that there was a small box of instant caf at the bottom of the drawer.  She grabbed a packet, using a small burner wedged into the space to heat a mug of water, and poured the powder, stirring the contents carefully so as not to spill the precious beverage.

Sitting, she looked at the dashboard of the ship from the co-pilot’s chair, afraid that Ben would wake up and rage about how she wasn’t respecting his space.  She knew this to be ridiculous, subconsciously, but it wasn’t an argument she was willing to have regardless.

The coordinates dash informed her that they still had another two and a half days before they made it to Ahch-To, and she sighed, hoping to have slept at least a full day away.  The longer they were on this Upsilon with nothing more than each other’s company, the more afraid she was that Ben would bore of her and realize his mistake in accompanying her to begin with, abandoning her on Ahch-To the way Luke had abandoned himself.

She sipped the caf slowly, trying not to burn her tongue.  Ripping open the nutrition bar, she took a bite and felt herself make a face.  It was so _bland_ , packed full of the vitamins her body needed with none of the taste of real food.  Her veg-meat and instant bread on Jakku had more flavor than these things.  Did Ben really eat these every day?

Suddenly it didn’t seem so bad to burn her mouth.  At least then she’d feel something besides the crumbling of the bar as it fell apart on her tongue like dirt.  She ate as quickly as possible, realizing that was the reason she hadn’t noticed how disgusting they were the previous day when she’d practically swallowed her food whole.

The caf, however, was as good as it could be for instant powder.  She reveled in the taste, feeling a little bit more relaxed.  Back on Barkhesh, Finn had made sure to drink a cup with her every morning that he was on base, and every evening after completing a mission together, back before the General had to put an end to her journeying the galaxy.

The thoughts of her friend, probably sick with worry over her sudden disappearance, make her heart swell painfully in her chest.  Despite knowing first-hand how resilient Rey is, Finn was prone to agonizing over her absences.  And she knew she’d have no way communicating with the base, to tell Finn she was alright; they were constantly changing radio channels, never staying for more than a few days to avoid being heard by any within-range First Order ships.

She pulls her thoughts away from this spiral, not willing to let Finn’s potential concern cloud her mind.  She focuses on the caf, letting it warm her from the inside out, and she realizes how cold it is in here.  She pulls her legs up, bracing her feet on the edge of the chair and tucking her elbows in to harness as much of her body heat as possible.

She thinks, momentarily, about going into the private quarters and grabbing the blanket from the bed.  That could wake up Ben, though, and she had no idea what time he’d finally gone to sleep, so she opted to use the caf to keep warm.

Then, all at once, a heavy fabric is draped around her shoulders, and she looks up to see Ben, avoiding her gaze as he drops his cloak around her.  It’s still warm with his body heat, and she watches him curiously as he pulls a nutrition bar and some water from the drawer next to her.

He doesn’t seem inclined to speak, so she mutters a weak, “Thank you.”  Ben sits in the pilot’s chair, unwrapping his nutrition bar and not even acknowledging her appreciation.  She stares at him, the smooth curve of his face, marred by the scar she gave him, his eyes reflecting the light of the stars as they streak by, and suddenly she can’t _take_ it anymore.  He won’t talk to her, won’t look at her, but still refuses to leave her alone with her thoughts, still insists on doing uncharacteristically nice things.  He sits next to her like a friend but won’t acknowledge her presence.  He gives up his bed for her but won’t say a single word.  Everything they’d experienced on Tatooine together, those quiet moments that felt like friendship, _deeper_ than friendship.  The new ways the bond was pulling them together, only for him to be the one pulling them apart, pulling _her_ apart.

Slamming her mug on the dashboard, she turns toward him, standing and letting the cloak fall from her shoulders, because her anger is so abrupt and sudden it warms her down to her core, flashing across her entire body like she’d been struck by lightning.

“Do you just plan on ignoring me forever, then?” she asks, fuming, and his eyebrow quirks in mild surprise, his eyes darting to her for the briefest of moments, which only serves to make her angrier.

“So, your well of patience does have a bottom,” he replies simply, and it’s all she can do to not stamp her foot like a child throwing a tantrum.

“You’re angry,” she points out once more, wanting to grab him by the shoulders, shake him until he responds with the anger she knows is vast and deep within him.  “But, gods forgive me, I have no inkling of an idea as to _why_ , and ins—“

“You don’t know why?”  He stands, too, measuring her up, nearly a head taller, and his voice remains even despite the anger boiling just beneath the surface.

“No!” she practically screams, her hands fisting at her sides.  “Because you won’t talk to me!  Because you’d rather stew in your own rage like a child!”  And this scene feels all too familiar, him keeping an even calm, though his breath comes out choppy and strained, as her eyes well with tears of their own accord.  He grits his teeth, fingers curling like claws against his thighs, ready to strike.  “We spent days perfectly fine, _synchronized_ , and then all of the sudden you’re acting like this because—“

“Because of you!”  And finally, he is shouting, his deep, booming voice filling the small cabin so fully it almost hurts her ears.  “Because you ran head-first into danger and didn’t even consider the consequences of your actions!”

“What are you…?”  She stares at him, her eyes wide as realization dawns on her.  “Are you talking about the _bounty hunters_?”  How could he be mad about that?  How could he look her in the eye after talking such a big game and truly be afraid they’d be bested?  “I thought you were so _certain_ they couldn’t kill you, so confident in your own abilities!  The likes of them could never kill the _Supreme Leader_ , could they?!”

“Of course not,” he fumes, venom licking into his words, readying to lash out like a viper.

“What then?  Were you worried about your reputation being sullied by some scavenger girl?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

“Why were you so worried for yourself then!?”  Because she can’t understand, no matter how she racks her brain, why he’d be cautious when taking on four measly bounty hunters.

“I wasn’t worried about _me_!” he screams, and there’s anguish in his tone that makes her stop short.  As suddenly as the anger had appeared, it dissipates, leaving her gaping open like a fresh wound, still too new to feel the pain quite yet.

He drops back into his seat, running aggravated hands through his hair as he tries to soothe himself back out of his anger.  Or maybe cloak himself even further in it.  She can’t tell.

She sits beside him in her own chair, swiveling it toward him as he sets his elbows on knees and exhales.  The mood in the room suddenly shifts to something she’s not quite sure she can bear, but has to, for his sake.  Because the words are out there now, and she’s not sure he’d take them back even if he could.  There’s so much weighing on him, and for a moment, after it sets in that it was, in fact, her life he’d been upset about losing, she wants to reprimand herself for adding to the weight.

“Ben,” she says, but he doesn’t look at her, doesn’t seem to hear her, so lost in his own thoughts.  She continues, anyway.  “Were you truly afraid they’d kill me?”  The moments ticked by, slowly, agonizingly.

“If I had been even a _millisecond_ later,” he finally contended.  “If I hadn’t been able to anticipate their course of action by instinct, you would be dead right now.”  He finally, finally looks her in the eye, and his own are swimming with an emotion she can’t name, one she’s never seen on his face before.  “There’s not a doubt in my mind about that.  And you ran, without regard, into a battle where you were outnumbered, out-weaponed, with no lightsaber, no way to deflect a blaster bolt.”

“But Ben, I’m fine,” she stresses, and he shakes his head, looking at the floor, where their feet were nearly touching.  The anger is subsiding in him, but he’s tense, overwhelmed with his emotion.  “I’m fine because you were there.”

“And if I hadn’t been?” he asked, practically spitting the words, clinging to his anger, because he had no idea what would happen if he let it go.  “If I hadn’t come out to meet you, would you be dead now?”

“Does it matter?” she asked, reaching out both with her mind and her hand, trying to touch him, but he pulls back.  So instead, she draws her hand up, her fingertips skimming his cheekbone, feeling the ridge of scar there.  He lets her hand rest there a moment before he sits up, out of her reach, but it’s enough for her.  For now.

“It matters to me,” he says, and she can hear it, hear the underlying words that he’s too afraid to speak, too afraid to admit.

_You matter to me._

She sits quietly for a moment, unsure of what to say, before he sighs, turning back toward the dash.  He finally tears open his nutrition bar, eating it quickly.

Rey takes her empty mug of caf and washes it, using the space between them as an excuse to mull over his words, both spoken and not.  She had no real reason to ever believe that Ben worried about anyone else, so learning that he worried about her felt impossible.  But the sincerity in his tone, the anguish – there was no way he was lying.  He’d never lied to her in the past, so she could only assume he wasn’t lying now.

She pulls her hair back, braiding it from the top of her head all the way down, just for something to do.  It was a simple braid, something Leia had passively taught her to do.  Then, nothing else to distract her, she walked back into the cockpit, grabbing his cloak where it had fallen on the floor and wrapping it around herself against the chill that had crept back up on her.  She took a deep breath, inhaling the sandalwood scent of him off it and refusing to let it fill her senses the way it seemed so inclined to.

Ben is still staring at his hands as she sits.  The silence between them is pregnant with a thousand feelings, flitting back and forth freely across the bond as if they were trying to fill the space between them.

“Why did you do it?” he asks, and she looks at him, wondering if he’s still going on about the bounty hunters, but something in her mind says no.

“Do what?”

“Why did you open back up to me?”  And the way he says it breaks her heart, just a little bit, though she’s not exactly sure as to why.  She thinks for a moment, reliving her epiphany from the island on Barkhesh that had seemed so whole and complete at the time.  Now, though, it only felt half-full, like she’d filled her hands with water and it was steadily running between her fingers.  She couldn’t grasp everything, it was too enormous.

“It just—“

“Felt right?” he finished for her, and she looks at him, a grimace on his face.  “You said that before.”

“Does it not feel right to you?” she asks, and he sighs, running a stressed hand through his hair.  He doesn’t respond, and the silence drifts back between them.

The hours stretch slowly, each of them sparsely getting up from their chairs.  There’s nothing to do aboard this ship except stew in each other’s presence.  The quiet feels endless, and Rey knows she has to stop it before it drives her mad.

“How did you build your lightsaber?” she asks, because it’s the first conversation topic that she can think of.  She’s still wrapped tightly in his cloak, though she’d moved from the co-pilot chair to the floor.  He was skimming through his datapad for the millionth time in the past hour, but he puts it away as soon as she speaks, turning his attention to her.

“My lightsaber?”

“That one,” she says, pointing.  Ben unclips it from his belt, turning it over in his hands.  She’d held it before, and all she really remembered was how heavy it had been, and how the blade had sounded so unstable in her ears.

He hears that thought in her head, the bond not offering either of them privacy, though they’d been trying to ignore each other’s thoughts.  She’d thought of little besides her time on Jakku, anyway, afraid she might think the wrong thing and he’d be able to pluck the Resistance base location out of her head.  If he even had the desire to anymore.

“It had to be reinforced,” he explains, holding it out to her.  She takes it and tests the weight, feeling the give in her muscles as they contract to hold such a weapon.  “The kyber crystal is cracked.”

“Is that what the exhausts are for?”  He nods.

“It was a hilt design I’d seen in old Sith archives, and it seemed to be the only thing that would help contain the blade.”  He shrugged.

“Why is it so unbalanced?” she asks, and he takes it back from her, studying it as he turns it over in his hands.  He takes a moment to think about it.

“My Jedi blade was blue,” he says, tempted to take the whole thing apart and explain how every piece worked to her.  But the construction was precarious, and he was afraid it’d take him too long to put it back together.  “As I mentioned before, it’s difficult to find kyber crystals anymore.  The Empire mined and hoarded as many as they could, the supply blowing up with the Death Stars.”

“Right,” she replies, remembering this conversation.  “You said some of your classmates had to return to the planet to look for more.”

“Yeah,” he says, looking at her rather than the blade.  “It helps, though, when the kyber crystal chooses you.”  She looks at her own bag, similar thoughts running through her mind, and he’s surprised to learn about how she’d found Vader’s old saber.  “It called to you?”

“On Takodana,” she explains.  “Just before you found me.”  She eyes him mischievously, and he shakes his head, taking a slow breath.  “I ran away from it.”

“They’re almost living beings,” he continues, side-stepping her attempt to relive their awkward beginning.  “They draw their power from the Force, much the way you or I do, and are able to channel it into a weapon.”

“How do they get their color?” she asks.  “Mine is blue, you mentioned that Luke’s was green, yours is red.”

“It’s based around the owner.”  He slides onto the ground, so they’re eye-level, still holding the hilt of his saber in front of him.  “You find a crystal, meditate on it for a few days.  It becomes the color that most closely matches your Force aura.”

“Does red mean evil?” she asks, but her eyes are smiling with a joke, and he barely bites back a laugh.  It’s a foreign sound to her, and she wouldn’t mind if it echoed in her ears forever.

“To get a red crystal, you have to bleed it,” he explains, and her face drops from joking to disbelief.  “Infuse as much Dark side energy into it as you can, so the crystal corrupts.”

“ _Why?”_   She’s horrified now.  “That sounds awful, why would you do that?”  His eyes widen, as though he wasn’t expecting her to be as disgusted as she is.

“It attunes the crystal to the Dark side,” he says, shrugging, like this is makes all of the sense in the world.  “I use the Dark side of the Force in most of my actions.  Why would my weapon be any different?”

“It just sounds so…painful,” she concedes, staring at his saber hilt.  She reaches between them and plucks it out of his hands once more, turning the heavy metal over in her hands.  Her fingers run up the length of wire pinned to the outside.  “Is this a stabilizer?”

“Essentially, yes,” he responds.  “The crystal within this saber is the same one I used as a padawan.  It cracked from the resistance when I bled it.”

“That makes it worse, somehow,” she says, handing the hilt back to him, and he clips it back to his belt.  He watches her as she recounts the details in her mind.  “Would I meditate on my crystals, then?  Anakin’s and Luke’s, to get them to be my color?”

He shrugs.  “I’m not sure if it works that way, or if they can only be changed by corrupting and bleeding them, like mine.”

“Well aren’t you special,” she smiles, then thinks for a moment.  “Can you fix a bled crystal?” she asks, more out of curiosity than anything.  “Un-bleed it somehow?”

“There are ways,” he says, folding himself into a more comfortable position.  “I’ve only read about them, though.”  She nods, expecting this answer.

“And what about the crack?”

“No, if there was a way to fix that, I would have done it by now.”  She nods again, absently scooching closer to him across the floor.  He has his knees up, elbows resting on them, watching her, trying to gauge her reactions, she guesses.  As though anything he says could make her run away now, while they’re flying through hyper space.

He snorts at the thought, and she grins, happy that they’re finally falling back into the banter.  It took far too long for the stress of their argument to fade away.

“What about your blue one?” she asks, and his eyes widen just a little.  She moves closer still, sitting next to him rather than across, a few inches between them.  As though it was too much space before.  He eyes her suspiciously, and she holds up her hands in mock defense.  “I’m only curious.”

He keeps his eye on her for a moment before sighing.  It’s not like she won’t get this information eventually anyway.  He pulls his saber out from his belt once more.  “It’s this one.”  She stares, wide-eyed.

“But it’s—“

“I had to modify it, to keep the crystal from exploding – add the ports.  That’s why it’s black,” he says with a simple shrug.  “It used to be silver.  It kept over-heating.”  He puts it back on his belt.

“So you’ve only built the one?”

“I built one, and then had to extensively modify it.”  He pulls his leg in, so his ankles are crossed, and leans back against the wall, and it’s such a natural pose for him she has to stop herself from gawking.  Most of the time, he never seemed to relax.  “It’s almost like I built two.”

“I’m concerned I won’t be able to do it,” she admits after a long while of sitting in comfortable silence.

“Don’t be,” he replies evenly, glancing at her from the corner of his eye.  She looks up at him.  “I’ll be there to help.”  She takes a slow, deep breath, rolling her shoulders a bit.  They brush against the sleeve of his shirt, and he doesn’t pull away.

She stands up after a moment, grabbing a couple of nutrition bars and tossing him one.  He catches it easily, and she sits beside him once more, putting a liter of water between them.  He eats his normally, but as soon as that first bite crumbles on her tongue, she feels herself making a face again, and Ben nearly chokes on his bar when he catches her.

“How do you eat these every day?” she hisses, looking at the bar in her hands.  “They have no flavor, and even the consistency is vile.”

“They have the most amount of nutrition out of anything I can eat.”

“I’d sacrifice nutrition for taste any day,” she retorts, shoving the rest of the brick into her mouth and downing it with water, her face pinching.

“You get used to it,” he shrugged, finishing his own bar and grabbing the bottle of water out of her hands, much to her protest.  She watches him, his Adam’s apple as it bobs every time he swallows, and something about that is so innocent.  A reminder that he is, in fact, a human who needs food and water to survive, despite the fact that his food of choice was disgusting and felt like dust in her mouth.

They sat quietly for a few moments.

“You never answered my question,” he says, pulling her from her thoughtless daze.

“Which one?” she asks, blinking slowly.

“About why you opened up the bond,” he mumbles so low, she has to strain her ears to hear him.  She looks at him.

“You never answered mine, either,” she says, in lieu of an actual explanation, and he sighs, catching her as she avoids the conversation.

“I have no answer,” he says after a moment, but both of them know it’s not the truth.  Everything between them was natural, normal.  Right.

 _Balance_.  The word floats between them, and Rey is pretty sure if she looks hard enough, she’ll see it there, tangible in the air.  He glances at her, as if he can see it, as well, but neither of them say anything.

 She sighs slowly, standing up and handing him back his cloak.  Despite the understanding that was blossoming between them, they were still being thrust further and further into a pool of confusion and uncertainty.  She leaned against the dash, stretching her legs.  They still had another two days before they made it to Ahch-To, and she realized that the hours were passing even slower than she’d originally thought.

He stood up beside her, grabbing the datapad, searching for any updates, but none were to be found.  He folded his cloak, setting it over the back of her chair, silently letting her know that it was hers to use if she needed it, before he walked back into the ‘fresher.

Rey took a steadying breath before walking into the private quarters.  Her bedmat was still a rumpled mess on the floor, and she laid on it instead of the bed.  It wasn’t fair that Ben let her take the bed that rightfully belonged to him.

She lay there for a moment, before standing up, grabbing his cloak off the chair in the cabin, and going back, rolling herself in it.  Something about the scent of him enveloping her was relaxing, easing her to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright so I couldn't answer your guys' questions with this update right away because I was literally being pushed out the door by my brother to go see the new Avengers movie. Which makes it sound like he's 14 but he's actually 29 so there's that.
> 
> However, we do get to delve a little bit more into Ben's past with this chapter so hopefully that comes as a good thing to you all. The stuff about bleeding kyber crystals to get a red saber - that's all canon. And kyber communicates with it's owner so I imagine it must be an agonizing process. And the process of meditating on a crystal to color it - I believe that's canon too. One must infuse their Force energy into the crystal, and it hones in on the beliefs of the wielder. I have this theory that the reason Ben's crystal cracked is because he was trying SO HARD to infuse Dark Side energy into it but he wasn't Dark enough himself, and the stress of warring with his inner light disrupted the meditation, causing the crystal to crack.
> 
> That's just a theory though.
> 
> ANYWAY onto questions:  
> "What do the members of the Resistance know about Rey and Ben? Do any of them know the truth, or do they just assume she had to fight Kylo after killing Snoke? And if that's the case, why didn't she tell them - did she think it sounded too crazy? Does anyone suspect the depth of Rey and Ben's relationship?" Alright so I think I explain a lot of this later but basically Rey chose to keep her mouth shut and let everyone believe what they wanted because she didn't want to become a liability. Her biggest fear, upon finding friends and a place to call home, was being left behind. She didn't think that having a literal tunnel in her mind to connect her to the Supreme Leader of the First Order was wise to admit, under fear of being exiled. No, she never mentioned Ben to anyone. She basically let people believe what they wanted.  
> "Is anyone suspicious of Rey's intentions when they wake up and find her gone?" Now, remember, it's been about four months since Crait. Rey has proven herself a loyal member of the Resistance at this point, even if some members are wary of her Force power. So no, no one suspects ill intent.  
> "When Ben says 'you never answered my question' and Rey responds, 'you never answered mine, either', what question is she referring to that he didn't answer?" "Does it not feel right to you?"
> 
> THANK YOU GUYS FOR THE KUDOS LIKE HOLY SHIT I love you all. You keep me going, and you each make the wait for Episode 9 that much more bearable. Please, leave me more, ask me more questions that I can answer, leave comments - it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy deep within my blackened heart.
> 
> I'll update again soon.
> 
> ALSO I try and leave song recommendations on most of the chapters but I haven't had much of a chance to find a long playlist, so if anyone has any songs they think flow with the vibe of this story (I already got a wonderful recommendation from user Eudora <3) please pass them my way and I'll include them in fitting chapters!


	16. in which neither of these two space nerds know how to react to human interaction, especially between each other

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, Rescue Me by 30 Seconds to Mars pairs well with this chapter.

Rey is absent from the cabin when Ren returns from his shower.  He took one every day, regardless of his physical exertion, out of habit more than anything else.

He sits in the pilot’s chair, waiting for her to emerge, and when she doesn’t he decides to go looking for her.  Not like there are too many hiding places.

It’s oddly quiet without her taking up his space, and he’s not sure if he likes it.

She’s fast asleep, laying on the bedmat he’d intended on using for himself.  He exhales slowly, pinching the bridge of his nose.  Of course she’d feel bad about him sacrificing his bed.  She wasn’t as selfish as she had the right to be, growing up alone with only herself to rely on.  Spending her days in the sun, scavenging for parts, she had every right to take what was hers and leave everyone in the dust.  But she didn’t, choosing to sleep on the floor despite him giving her full access to the bed.  However, she didn’t realize that it was too short for him, so he had no issue sleeping on the floor.

Leaning against the doorway, he watches her sleep for a moment, wrapped up in his cloak.  She sleeps on her side, curled into a fetal position, like she’s trying to preserve body heat.  Which, maybe, once upon a time, she had to.  She looks relaxed and peaceful, sleeping dreamlessly, either too tired or not to that level of sleep yet.

He takes the three quick strides across the room and bends down, gathering her up in his arms, his heart beating funnily in his chest at the proximity of her.  Ben walks slowly to the bed, depositing her there, and she stirs despite the fact that he’s laid her down as gently as he possibly can.  She looks up at him, eyes bleary with sleep, and smiles the warmest smile he’s ever seen on her or anyone.  There’s no way she could possibly be awake to show him that much affection, so he attempts to pull away.

“Wait,” she says, trying to blink recognition into her tired eyes, but she just watches him like she can’t quite figure out what’s going on.  One hand is gripping his shirt sleeve.  She pulls him down slightly, and he bends closer to her like she’s going to tell him a secret.

“Lie down,” she says, her voice heavy with sleep.

She pushes herself as close to the wall as she can get, not letting go of his arm.  He just stares at her, his other hand braced against the wall, so he doesn’t fall down on top of her in shock.  She takes a slow breath.

“You’re not going to let me sleep on the floor,” she mumbles, pushing herself into a half-sitting position.  “I won’t let you sleep there either.”

“I don’t— “

“Lie down,” she says again, and stars, he wants to fight the urge so much.  But regardless of how noble he’s trying to be, he’s still sleeping on a steel floor with barely a cushion between it and his body, and the bed is more comfortable, though not nearly long enough.

But he’d literally be sleeping with the enemy, no matter how hard each of them has fought that title the past few days.  There’s something there, though, dancing in the Force between them, and he can feel it tugging him down to her as much as he can feel her holding onto his arm.  A physical thing, desperate for them to have that interaction.

Finally, he relents, sitting on the space she’s left for him.  She pulls him down further, so he’s lying on his back, the arm she holds between them, and everything about him is so rigid there’s no way sleep could ever come to him.

“Relax,” she breathes, moving his arm up so it’s wrapped around her as she lays her head against his shoulder.  She wraps part of the cloak around him, and he automatically situates himself, positioning more of her body weight against him.  She sighs, and he feels her hand fall against his chest, right above where his heart is.  “Don’t be afraid,” she murmurs, repeating his words from a lifetime ago back to him as she wriggles herself even closer to him.  There’s no space, and no chance for him to escape.

Like when he became her pillow on Tatooine, but this is so much further than that, because she _wants_ him here, demanded him to stay in her sleepy stupor.  Despite the fact that his name is feared across every galaxy.  Despite the fact that he’s _Kylo Ren_ , Supreme Leader of the First Order, no matter how mocking her tone is when she throws that back at him.  He wants to leave, wants to stay, wants to run, wants to throw himself at her mercy.

Kylo Ren is always conflicted.  There’s a war waging within him at any given moment.  The fight against his corruption at the hands of the former Supreme Leader, the guilt for killing his father that he buries as deep as it’s willing to go, before it comes clawing its way back to the surface.

Somehow, this girl, cradled so delicately in his arms, with her head on his shoulder and her hand on his heart, both calms that storm and rears it painfully, for wholly other reasons.  The pull to the light isn’t nearly as daunting with her beside him, but the desire to have her remain by his side consumes him completely.  He can’t think straight, can’t articulate the emotions he’s trying like hell to suppress.  And, despite everything he did, everything he accomplished when she’d shut him out, he dared to say he almost missed her.  Annoying as it was to have her popping up in front of him at any given turn, her presence in his life was relaxing, and her absence was exhausting.

“Ben?” she whispers, and he looks down at her, realizing too late that their bond was wide open, thrumming with her content as she idly picks through his feelings.  There was too much physical contact for him to shut her out, and he tries to put distance between them, but she just clutches him closer.  The hand that had been resting against his chest moves, sliding up until her thumb graces the length of his jaw.  She moves, slightly, draping more of her body across his, before she settles into his chest.

“I missed you, too,” was all she said.  Sincerity flitted across the bond, and Ben couldn’t help but relax.  He felt her breathing even out as she drifted back to sleep, and his own breathing stretched as her exhaustion spilled into him, willing him to sleep.

After a moment, he doesn’t even want to fight it.

 ...

_A great power sits upon his mighty throne as a young Ben Solo approaches carefully.  He’s just followed the voices in his head, the ones that told him Luke Skywalker would be his downfall despite the years of training, the ones that told him to destroy the Jedi temple, to bring his fellow conflicted padawans to this castle of ruin on Malachor.  He’d known from his studies that this was once home to a Sith temple, a planet of great darkness.  And he feels it, now, so close._

_“Come closer, child,” the creature in the chair says, and the words illicit a memory from the dredges of Ben’s tumultuous mind, one just on the fringes of awakening.  He thought he’d been brought here by Darth Vader, but the alien being in the throne is no more human than Chewbacca._

_Ben approaches anyway, despite the hollow feeling in his chest and the echoes in his mind screaming at him to run._

_"You’ve done well,” the thing says, and Ben is close enough to see the great scars across its misshapen face, the lopsidedness of its blue eyes.  He almost recognizes this face, despite the papery skin and hollowed cheeks.  The creature nods, leaning forward, beckoning him in a familiar way, and Ben suddenly realizes._

_"Senator Snoke,” he says, mildly in disbelief, and the creature’s delicate skin stretches into a smile.  It’s awful and terrifying.  He’d looked normal, last Ben had seen him, just under a decade ago._

_"A ruse,” Snoke admits with a careful shrug, as though his bones would break if he moved them too suddenly, responding to the thoughts in Ben’s head.  “It was all a ruse.”  Ben stares, waiting for the creature to tell him why he’s here, because he can no longer think of this thing as the person it had presented itself as for his entire life._

_The darkness suddenly wells, lapping at Ben’s feet, swirling around his ankles like it wants to drag him under.  The Force shifts, and Ben’s mind is suddenly struck with awe, because it’s this creature, this alien before him that contorts and manipulates the Force so powerfully he almost loses his breath._

_“Yes,” it hisses, sounding exactly like a garden snake from home, making Ben shudder.  “Power.  You can have it, too,” it beckons him again, and Ben steps forward of his own accord.  “You can belong somewhere, as a Knight of Ren.  The anger and hatred wells deep within you now, and I can bring it to the forefront.  Give you everything you’ve ever desired.”  The idea is so enticing, after so many years of wanting just that.  To belong.  To no longer feel like he fades into the background of his most important people’s lives.  His mother, his father, even his uncle, who had stood over him with an ignited lightsaber spitting his demise._

_He hesitates, then reaches for that power._

_“He already belongs somewhere!” a voice rings out, true and proud against the dreary backdrop of their surroundings, and Ben starts, eyes darting around, looking for the owner of such a voice.  Snoke’s hatred wells, palpable around either of them, and he stands, meek, looking like he could be blown over by a light breeze._

_Ben turns around, and suddenly_ she _is there, standing with her fists at her sides, wielding that heirloom lightsaber, and Ren suddenly remembers where he is.  A scene in his past, where he reaches for Snoke, for that power, and it tears apart his mind, molds it like clay to be exactly what Snoke wants from a lapdog.  But now, Rey is in this dream, in his memory, a light within the darkness that had consumed him so fully._

_She stands straight, shoulders back, saber ignited but not drawn up to attack, looking every bit the beautiful tornado she was in the throne room on the Supremacy.  Hair blowing in the fiery wind, gray cloak billowing.  She looked like royalty.  Like a goddess._

_"She doesn’t care for you,” Snoke hisses, trying to seed that doubt in his mind, but Rey rushes forward, coming up to stand beside him, no longer the child he was when he’d first come to Malachor.  “She will never let you have everything you desire.  She will never stay, she knows too much about you, Kylo Ren.”_

_"I do know,” she retorts, looking up at him instead of the monster.  “I know, I watched, I saw the truth.  And I am still here.”  She reaches out, her hand coming to rest on his, ungloved, their skin singing upon contact, and he can feel it, even in his dream.  “I am still here, Ben.”_

_Snoke screams, a guttural sound Ren has never heard before, and lashes out, his hand stretching impossibly across the distance until it closes around her throat.  She gasps as he raises her into the air, fighting for her breath, and Ren reaches for his saber, finding that it’s not there._

_He feels the darkness reaching into her mind, trying to tear her apart the way it did him, and he howls in anger, readying himself to attack Snoke physically if he has to._

_“Ben,” she cries hoarsely, reaching for him.  He grabs her saber instead, flinging it across the space like a boomerang and watching as it slices the embodiment of Snoke in half, the same way it had when he’d killed him on the Supremacy._

_Rey falls, and Ren catches her, both of them tumbling to the floor.  Brushing her hair back off her face, she smiles at him, that same warm smile she’d given him before.  All at once, he wants so desperately to kiss her, he finds himself leaning forward automatically._

_“You’ll never be free of me,” that alien voice whispers in his head.  “You can kill me, but you cannot kill who you truly are.”  He looks toward the body of Snoke, and it has disappeared.  Looking back down, desperate to see Rey’s light, he finds that his own hands are wrapped around her throat._

He awakens with a start, gasping for breath and reaching for Rey of his own accord.  At some point during their sleep, they’d shifted, turning so she faced the wall and he faced her, his body folded perfectly against hers, molding around every curve and dip.

Like two puzzle pieces.

His face is pressed against her neck, his arms encasing her body, and her hands are folded over his, locking him in place.  Her hair tickles his forehead, and he takes a slow breath, inhaling the scent of her.  She smells like a flowery meadow, clean and fresh.

She’s alive, and he isn’t hurting her.

His fear slowly ebbs away, replaced with a deep, angry scar that runs across his chest and over his heart.  He isn’t hurting her now, but he could, so easily.  He could break her if he isn’t careful, if she hasn’t already broken herself, putting her faith so blindly in him.

She turns in her sleep, facing him again with her face buried in his chest, and knows he can’t leave her.

 As he sighs back to sleep, he wonders if he will ever be able to.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rey rouses from sleep slowly, the entirety of her being warm.  She feels safe, which is abnormal, not something she’s accustomed to feeling while unconscious.  She moves, stretching back and opening her eyes slowly.

She’s met with a wall of black, and she gasps, sitting up so suddenly it makes her head spin.  Ben is there, folded against her with his arms loosely wrapped around her waist.  She pulls back, desperate to be away, the proximity too much, when she remembers all at once what happened the night before.

Stars, she’d _told_ him to stay, practically begged him to!  No wonder he was here, his huge body taking up so much of the tiny bed.  She wouldn’t let him get away.

The heat rises in her cheeks at her own boldness, and she covers her face with her hands, unwilling to face Ben or herself.  How could she do that?  How could she shrug past everything and welcome him into bed with her?

She’s angry, too, because none of this would have happened if he’d let her sleep on the bedmat like she originally planned.  She looks across the room at it, discarded in a mess, and huffs her displeasure.

They were so close, the heat of his breath tickling her arm, and she can’t believe he didn’t untangle himself from her at some point in the night.  She sighs, slowly unraveling herself from him, positioning his hands away as she gently moves over him, careful not to wake him.  She stretches over his body, having been trapped against the wall, and he doesn’t stir as she slips out of bed.

The heat is still in her cheeks, and she rushes into the ‘fresher, splashing cold water against her face.  Reddened cheeks, her braid leaking wisps of hair around her face, wide eyes that can’t shake her shocked expression.

“It’s fine,” she whispers to herself, rubbing her hands against her face.  “All you did was sleep.  It’s fine.”  She can’t think of anything else to do, so she undresses and hops in the shower, trying to scrub the blush from her body.

She groans, fisting her hands against her eyes as she rinses the soap off.  She’d gone on dozens of missions with Finn and Poe, the three of them falling asleep as they huddled together for warmth.  Bodies pressed tightly against each other, trying to survive the night as they infiltrated First Order systems, slept in trees, burrowed into the snow, hiding in caves.  They’d had to coddle Finn back to health when he fell into an icy lake once, and she and Poe had agreed to strip nearly naked, hugging either side of him to prevent hypothermia.

Why, then, did it feel so incredibly different to be lying down next to Ben?  Why did this blush creep everywhere, shooting to life every time she thought about his arms wrapped around her?

She shut the shower off and leaned against the tile with no answers, only more questions.

He was awake when she exited the ‘fresher, absently munching away on a nutrition bar, but she noticed that there was a steaming mug of caf in front of her chair, with his cloak draped across the back, and she smiles in spite of herself.

They watch the stars in relative silence for some time, allowing her to choke down some food and finish her caf.

“How old are you?” she asks absently, having pulled the cloak around her shoulders once more.  It was ridiculously warm in this thing, and she had no idea how he wore it as often as he did without overheating.

He glances at her, setting down the datapad he’d been rifling through.  There weren’t any updates about Rey anywhere, and no one had seemed to connect the dots back to him, either.  After two days, he finally felt like maybe they were in the clear.  “I turned twenty-nine a few weeks ago.”

“Did you have a party?” she asks slyly, and he shakes his head, a ghost of a smile on his face.  “Come on.  The _Supreme Leader_ could throw the most elegant parties, especially for his birthday.”  She wiggles her fingers, as though that emphasized the elegance of these superfluous balls he had no intention of throwing for himself.

“No one knew it was my birthday,” he answered honestly, and she had to stop herself from letting the next sarcastic comment escape.  “What about you?”  She thinks.

“I don’t honestly know,” she said with a shrug, but he felt her sadness.  “I was around four, I think, perhaps five when my parents…”  She doesn’t finish the sentence, and he can’t help but feel the hatred toward them well up in his chest.  She feels it, too, glancing at him and sighing slowly, choosing to let his irrationalities slide for the time being.  “That’d put me around twenty, maybe.”  She falls quiet for a moment, rifling through her mind for the next mundane question.  “What’s your favorite color?”

He looks at her again, amused.  These were the most normal question she’d ever asked him.  “Green,” he responds simply, indulging her in her inquiries, because what else were they supposed to do for the next eighteen hours?

“That’s unexpected,” she replies, looking at him with her head resting on her knees.  He raises his eyebrows, watching her eyes as they dart to his tunic.  He glances down at himself, taking in the black, and has to smile, chuckling at her unmet expectations.  She can’t help but watch it spread across his face, such a strange sight, but it makes her breath catch in her throat all the same.

“And yours?” he asks, and she finally takes her eyes off his lips.  She watches his eyes dance, and as much as she wants to say that green is her favorite color, too, she finds herself saying, “Amber,” instead.

“Really?” he asks, sitting back.  “I figured you would have said blue.”

“Why blue?” she asks, smiling.  He shrugs.

"You know, water.  You lived on a desert planet.”

“So you just assume my favorite color is blue?  Did you think I spent all my time dehydrated, dreaming of water?” she asks, exasperated, but she playfully nudges him.  “That’s a little bit presumptuous of you.”

“I guess I don’t know you as well as I thought I did.” 

“Guess not,” she smiles.

They talk like that, going back and forth, for a few hours.  She drinks another cup of caf, and he makes himself one as well, taking slow sips and commenting on how long it’s been since he drank anything other than water.  She chastises him, telling him that it’s okay to indulge every now and then.

“What do you think I’m doing here?” is his only response, and she feels her cheeks heat up of their own accord.  She gets up abruptly after this, wandering around the ship until she can calm herself down.

The hours pass slowly, but it’s comfortable, them falling into a pattern of communication and silence, communication and silence.  They talk briefly about his upbringing on Chandrila, but he doesn’t have much to say, commenting mostly about how his mother was gone a lot on New Republic business and his father spent a lot of time smuggling.

“That must have gotten lonely,” she says softly.

“As a child, I suppose,” he shrugs.

“Han kept smuggling even after becoming a war hero?”  She smiles at that, but he doesn’t seem quite as amused.

He seems more interested in hearing about her time on Jakku, though she doesn’t have a ton to say.  Her days were pretty scheduled, waking, scavenging, cleaning, eating her portions.

“And your nights?” he asks.  They’d managed to fall back onto the floor, facing each other.

“I spent some of them using ship sims I built,” she says.  “That’s how I learned to pilot.”

“How did you learn to fight?”

“You have to,” she says easily, curling a leg beneath her and leaning back against the panel.  “As a child, you’re easy to overwhelm, so people aren’t afraid to take your parts for their own portions.  As an adult, especially a girl…”  She trails off, and he understands after a moment of rifling through thoughts to find out exactly what she meant.  Learning how to defend herself against people who wanted to steal more from her than just ship parts.

His fists clench in anger, and she reaches out, caressing his hand, trying to calm him.

“It’s in the past,” she reminds him, repeating his own mantra, as though that makes up for what any of the scum on that disgusting planet tried.  Never got near her, though, she assures him.

“You should have killed them,” he says around grit teeth, and she shrugs.

“They were Unkar Plutt’s minions,” she replies.  “Killing them would have denied me food, for at least a week, possibly more, no matter what I brought to the table, just to spite me.  I wouldn’t risk my life just because I wanted to end theirs.”

“Then I’ll kill them.”

“No, I never want to go back there,” she says quickly, letting them fall back into silence.  He leans back, looking at her form as yawns and she stretches her arms.  Her words turn over in his mind, weighing the implication in her sentence.  As though she expects to remain by his side.

She catches the thoughts as they drift through his mind, but doesn’t comment on them, allowing him his privacy.

After a while, she begins feeling tired, but what happened the previous night comes to the forefront of her mind and she’s terrified to repeat it.  Her face flames, and he senses the shift in her emotion, watching her curiously, to which she shakes her head vigorously.  He notices the circles deepening under her eyes.

“We’ll be there in about six hours,” he says after standing up and checking the dash.  He glances at her.  “If you’re going to build a lightsaber, you’ll probably want to rest.  You’ll be meditating on the Force for days; it’s going to use a lot of energy.”

“Days?”

“More than likely,” he shrugs.  “It’s a complicated process.”

“Don’t make it sound too exciting,” she mumbles, and his face stays neutral but his eyes dance with humor.  She sighs, having wanted to avoid this altogether, but she stands up.  “Will you, ah, rest, as well?”

“Eventually,” he says, and she nods, turning toward the chambers.

She stares longingly at the bedmat, knowing laying there would only end up with her on the actual bed anyway.  She was getting nervous, eyes going back and forth between the bedmat and the bed, before sighing deeply and lying down on the bed.

She’s too anxious to sleep, awaiting the moment he walks in, not knowing if she’s going to have to deal with him lying on the bedmat, and her feeling bad about his decision, or if he’d lay with her, feeling his body against hers.

The minutes tick by, one bleeding into the next, and it feels like an eternity before he finally walks in.  It’s both a relief and a hindrance, and she can’t decide if she can breathe for a moment.

He stands in the doorway for a moment, and she can feel his uncertainty the same as she feels her own.  She sits up, looking at him, and they make eye contact for the briefest moment, neither of them knowing what step to take next.  He looks away first, looking at the bedmat, then back to her.

“I don’t…”  He clenches and unclenches his fists, and she sighs, moving over on the bed.  He approaches slowly, sitting on the edge of the bed with his back to her.  Shoulders hunched with stress.  She sits up, tucking her legs beneath her and placing a steady hand on his back.

“It’s okay,” she says quietly, urging them to believe it.  She’s trying to pretend for both of their sakes that it’s not an issue.  “Let’s just try and sleep.”

It’s much more awkward the second time around, when she doesn’t have interrupted sleep to muddle her mind.  He moves, situating himself appropriately, lying on his back.  She’s against the wall again, draping the cloak over both of them as she settles against him.  Similar to how they began last night, but now both of them are rigid with anxiousness, neither of them able to relax.  She has her head on the pillow this time, instead of against his chest, so he can’t wrap an arm around her, and the bed is just too small to sleep separately.

“I can lay on the floor,” he insists, and she shakes her head.

"We’ll figure this out.”  She leans up on her elbow, looking down at the expanse of his chest, his irregular breathing.  “How was it last night?  I slept well, I had to have been comfortable.”  Ben sits up, too, sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers.

“You had your head here,” he says, gesturing to his shoulder.  “And I wrapped my arm around you.”  She feels her face heating, and she looks away, trying to use her hair as a curtain despite knowing that her embarrassment is volleying between them.

“Maybe I should sleep on the floor, instead.”

“No,” he disagrees this time.  “I can stretch out better on the floor, anyway.”

“Why do you insist on being so stubborn?”

“Why do you?”  And she bites back a laugh, despite her frustration, because this whole situation is ridiculous and strange and too normal for it to be happening with Ben Solo, of all people.

“Stop accusing me of being stubborn in such a stubborn tone,” she jests, and he runs his hand through his hair, having to stifle a laugh as well.  The moment is fleeting, but it’s enough to help break the tension, and they lie down again, trying to realign their bodies.  She gives in and rests her head on his shoulder, allowing him to wrap an arm around her waist.  It takes a minute, and they have to remind themselves to relax, but as soon as they find a solid position, Rey realizes that that same level of safety she’d felt this morning is cloaking her again.

It’s quiet for a while, but she knows Ben is still awake, staring up at the dark ceiling.

“Why green?” she finally asks, and he takes a deep breath.

“I’ve always liked wooded areas,” he says, his voice a deep rumble within his chest, and she feels him shrug under her.  She hums.

“No wonder you had no issue chasing me through the forest.”  He shifts, and she feels the pitter-patter of his heart skip a beat.

“What about you?” he asks, effectively dodging this conversation again, because he doesn’t want to be reminded of the painfully awkward way they’d been thrust into each other’s lives.  Though she seems to have no trouble making a joke out of the situation.  “Why amber?”

She drums her fingers against his chest and lets out a slow breath, unwilling to answer.  She feels his hand tighten against her hip, like he’s trying to reassure her, and she sighs, giving in without much of a fight.

“It was the color of your eyes in the suns on Tatooine,” she says.  “It used to be green, because it wasn’t a color I ever got to see on Jakku.  So I suppose you got that right in your assumption earlier,” she chuckles, nudging his side with her hip and finally feeling how stiff he’d gotten next to her, like she was snuggled against a wooden board.

His hand tightens again, squeezing, and she’s suddenly extremely aware that she’s laying with Ben, that her favorite color had changed because of Ben, that she’d been locked in a ship for nearly three days with Ben and not grown tired of his company.  They’d gotten angry, embarrassed, screamed, but she never wanted him to leave.

Because it was Ben.

She feels him take a steadying breath, like he’s trying to hold on to reality, or maybe his reality had just been blown away, she wasn’t quite sure.  But she moves closer to him nonetheless, feeling emboldened by her declaration.  Her hand brushes against the bare skin of his neck, and she feels him swallow.

“Goodnight, Ben,” she says softly.

He shifts, pulling her closer, wrapping his hand around hers and pulling it down so it rests over his heart, but he doesn’t move his own hand, allowing it to lay on top of hers.

“Goodnight, Rey.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay full disclosure I'm freaking STOKED that I have over 400 kudos on this story - makes me feel like I'm doing something right, writing it down. (Someday I want to write a book and it makes me think it might actually be good??)
> 
> However, I was supremely disappointed when I went to post this chapter and I had 419. Because that's only one off from 420 and I am secretly a twelve-year-old.
> 
> SO ANYWHO please don't take that to heart, when I got over 400 kudos I legitimately cried. I never expected this kind of feedback on this story, my readers are the most beautiful creatures in the galaxy and I love each and every one of you.
> 
> Also two of you guys are having conversations in the comments? Is that normal???? I've never posted a fan-fiction story but there you both go, discussing fan theories and giving me ideas. It was incredible.
> 
> Here we have Ben and Rey both being total nerds because neither of them know how to be normal people who touch and talk. And neither of them know how to have feelings. I hope you guys don't get too much secondhand embarrassment, because I got a TON writing this chapter, but I don't think either of them would know what to do in this situation. It takes Rey being sleep-deprived to finally even want that physical contact lol.  
> Also I hope you guys aren't upset about the allusion to Palpatine's past with Snoke. My whole thought process on that is, this guy reveres Darths Sidious and Vader. Why wouldn't he think pulling that shit would work a second time? But I also know the plan of the First Order was more improvisation, so who knows.
> 
> Another secret - besides some tweaking and editing, I'm actually finished with this story and starting my next project here in a few days, which I will discuss with you all later. But this story is nearly 180k words so get ready for a wild ride.
> 
> No questions to answer! But don't let that deter you from asking them!
> 
> I will answer with the next update, as always. I appreciate all of you, each and every one. Leave me kudos, tell me you're enjoying reading this as much as I am enjoying writing it. I adore you all so, so much. Beautiful souls. Giving me the validation I crave.
> 
> I'll see you on Friday!


	17. in which our space nerds make it to ahch-to and they both realize some stuff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to, listen to the acoustic version of Waves by Dean Lewis with this chapter. They go nice together.

The ship beeps sometime later, alerting Ren that they’re coming up on Ahch-To’s location.  He untangles himself from Rey, who had a leg across his hips and her face buried in his neck, and he has to stop himself from bypassing this system altogether.  He’d stay in hyperspace for the rest of his days if it meant he could spend them wrapped up in Rey the way they had been last night.

She rouses from sleep as he moves, looking up at him with half-lidded, sleepy eyes.

“We’re coming up on your Jedi planet,” he says, and she nods, sitting up slowly.  He exits the private quarters and sits in the pilot’s chair, steadying the ship as he pulls it out of hyperspace for the first time in three days.

The stars around them still immediately, just as Rey is taking her place in the seat beside him.  Her eyes widen with excitement as they came up on a planet that was bluer than any other planet Ren thought he’d ever been to.  He checked the stats, the map, and realized they were further out in the galaxy than he ever thought he’d travel.  Skywalker had truly found a place of isolation for himself.

They broke atmo quickly, the Upsilon shuddering as it descended for landing.  Rey steered the course toward a small sector of islands on the otherwise oceanic planet, pulling the ship up and landing it on a small patch of land right next to the sea.  There was a sun in the sky, but it was only hitting the ground in small patches, much of the view obstructed by dark, foreboding clouds.

Rey hopped out of her seat as soon as they touched land, her excitement bubbling as she ran to the rear of the ship.  After a moment, she was back, grabbing Ben’s arm and pulling him to his feet.

“I know it’s strange because I wasn’t here very long,” she says as she pulls him toward the ramp, which she’d already opened, “but this place was the most at-home I’ve ever felt.”

Something about that sentence resonates with Ren, deep in his chest, and he buries just as soon as it blossoms.

They walked out together, the chill of the island hitting them immediately.  After living in a temperature-controlled environment for as long as they had, feeling the biting cold of impending rain was sudden and unexpected.  Ren shuddered.  Rey watched him curiously.  After a moment, she unclasps his cloak from around her and hands it back to him.

“I’m not cold,” he says, but she shakes her head.

“Neither am I,” she replies, so he takes it from her, folding it over his arm, and she rolls her eyes at him.  The air is permeated by the annoying squawks of small birds, fluttering in flocks across the island, and he looks at Rey, who has words like _cute_ flitting across her mind.  He rolls his eyes.

As soon as Ren’s feet touch the solid ground of the island, he stops.  Rey continues walking for a few moments before she realizes that he’s not beside her.  She turns around to find him kneeling on the rocky makeshift landing pad, his bare hand spread against the outer face of the island.

"Ben?” she asks, and he barely hears her.  But he _feels_ it, pulsating beneath his fingertips, echoing across this island, across this planet, drawing him in like a magnet.  He does everything he can not to gawk, to remain neutral, but this planet is rippling beneath his body, shuddering with the Force, so powerful it takes his breath away.

“What’s here?” he asks, slightly embarrassed of his own breathlessness.  She doesn’t even seem to feel it, like she’s wrapped up in an immunity bubble, and she blinks at him.

“The original Jedi temple, I think,” she says, looking up the mountain.  Ben shakes his head.

“No, not just that,” he says, finally standing up, trying to reign himself in.  The loss of that connection is so immediate he briefly considers taking off his boots and walking barefoot, just to maintain constant contact with the ground.  He feels her mind reaching out to him, wrapping around his in a cocoon of warmth and light, and she smiles despite her confusion.

“Are you okay?” she asks as he bridges the distance between them, feeling is own mind reaching out to her of its own accord.

"Yes,” he says.  She raises an eyebrow at him.  “I’m _fine_.”  But his insistence does nothing to her assumptions, and she pulls him forward.

“Wait until you see it,” she replies, an easy smile on her face, like she’s showing him around her house.  And he realizes that’s her reaction to this place.  Where he feels the Force, swirling around this island so completely and utterly, but from the outside, she’s already immersed herself in it.  Like he’s standing in the shallow end of a pool she’s touched the bottom of.

She leads him up the mountain, remaining quiet, though whether she’s taking it all in herself again or letting him take it in, he’s not sure.  This place is a wonder – despite the birds – life and death beating in unison, pulsating with every beat of their hearts, reminding him with every step that this place is real and vast and incredible.  He can’t even find it within himself to feel angry that Skywalker was here first, because this island is drawing him in with so much vigor he can’t feel anything but fascination.

They walk past ancient ruins, and Ben trails his fingers along the dilapidated stone walls, feeling echoes of Force signatures beneath his skin.  And he wants to be angry, because they’re Jedi signatures.  He wants to want to destroy the remains of these walls, but nothing ignites within him like he’s used to, and for whatever reason, that doesn’t even frustrate him.

They make it to a vast meadow, walking across until they come to a peak in the mountain.  Not quite the tallest point, but it looks out over the oceans.  He realizes they’ve walked around, he can see their Upsilon beneath them like a distant ant.  They stand together, immersed in silence and the feel of the island, for a while.  Too long to care, too short to notice.  And then she’s walking again, grasping his hand and pulling him along.  There’s tranquility here, beneath all the power and the birds, and he zeroes in on it with his mind and body, allowing it to flow freely through him.

She walks them through a small village, beehive-like huts scattered along the walls of the mountain, and he’s seen this before, in his dreams.  Small, lizard-like creatures see them, lock eyes with Rey, and then quickly rush along, chattering in a foreign language to each other.  Rey leans in.

“They don’t like me much,” she whispers.  “I may have been a bit of a destruction the last time I was here.”

“You say that like it’s something new,” he responds, and she laughs, bringing him up to a hut on the very edge of the village.  It’s got a stone fire pit on the outside, a metal panel of an X-Wing is held up as the door, and he feels the ghost-like force of a signature he knows well.

“This was Master Luke’s hut,” she says, and he shakes his head, walking past.

 “I know,” he responds.  She jogs a bit to catch up with him.

“If his lightsaber is anywhere, it’s in there,” she reminds him, and he takes a slow breath.

“Maybe you should find it.”  She grabs his arm, pulling him to a stop and looking up at him.  She searches his eyes for a moment, then he feels her in his emotions, rifling through them, trying to get to the bottom across the bond.  She sighs, then turns him around, pointing up the mountain.

“The temple is up there,” she says.  He nods, and they turn in separate directions, her going back to the village and him walking up the mountain toward the temple that’s drawing him in like gravity.  As he approaches, the wind howls, a storm brewing on the horizon.  He tugs his cloak around his shoulders and walks through the huge stone vestibule, looking up at the arched way, some thirty stories above him.

The wind picks up, pulling him up the stone staircase that wraps around the interior of the structure as it blows through the cavernous corridor.  He walks carefully, conscious of the deterioration of the stone.  Small pieces of rock break apart under his feet, clattering down the steps, every crunch making him cringe despite the fact that everything around him is solid with no chance of it falling apart.

Finally, he gets to the top level, a room much smaller, with a pool in the middle that collects water from the cave-like ceiling.  He walks up, stands on the edge and looks into the design beneath the small ripples.

It’s some type of symbol, though not one he’d ever seen in any of his studies.  A man sat, in a lotus pose, with an ignited lightsaber, half of the swirling rocks white, the other half black.  It beckons him, willing him to understand, to see more than he’s able to see.  Something overwhelming and enormous, much larger than he is, than either of them are.

He reaches down and touches the water.

All at once, his breath tears from his chest, lost somewhere further away than he can comprehend, and Ben falls to his knees in front of the mosaic.  The Force fills him and the space so completely he can’t even see, filling all of his senses utterly, until everything is gone.

 His eyes close as he takes in a half-breath, unable to find his lungs buried within his body, because they’re suddenly so far away he’s not even sure he’s real anymore, that he ever was.  All around him, there’s light and darkness, erupting like a volcano, and he’s thrust back to Mustafar, to Malachor, to Coruscant, to Tatooine, and to this planet, stretching and pulling him to each, in every direction.  There’s somewhere else there, too, a planet he can’t name, that he’s only seen in dreams lost in his mind.

Like the girl.

He only ever saw her in dreams, the epitome of color, casting rainbows across his darkness, too fully for him to remember upon waking.

And now she’s real and bright and he feels her Force pulsing somewhere nearby, but he’s lost, caught in a spider’s web where the Force throbs and he struggles, but there is no breaking free, because it’s part of him and her, part of the island, part of the planet, the air, the grass.  It’s _everything_.

This place is light and darkness, a whirlwind of life and death, vitality and decay, black and white, combining and rushing around him until they bleed together to become gray, and the word is whispered straight into his mind, in her voice.

_Balance._

And his world is tilted on its axis, sent into a tail-spin, so fast he collapses against his own weight.  He can’t hold on, his fingers bruising under the tension as he whirls, fighting the wind until it’s too much and he lets go, coming undone, careening out into the expanse while galaxies explode around him in flashes of vivid colors he’s never seen, that he has no name for.

Finally, he breathes fully, his eyes opening as he gasps back into himself.

He hasn’t moved.

But everything feels so different.

Ben stands, stumbling backwards, away from the rock mosaic built into the floor, because he’s here but he’s not and he can’t think about that or he’ll spiral again.

He bumps into something solid and warm, reaching back reflexively and catching it before it can fall to the floor as he turns to face it.

 It’s _her_ , staring up at him with wide, incredible eyes, as though she’d been through the same tornado he’d experienced.  And maybe she had, through him.

“Rey,” he breathes, touching her shoulders to make sure he’s not hallucinating.

She pulls him against her at once, wrapping her arms around his torso, and his first instinct is to tear her off of him, remove himself, but something deep within him _needs_ this contact to ground him once more.  After a moment, he folds her into his arms and feels her forehead where it presses against his neck, and he can’t decide if he wants to run away or fall to his knees and worship her.  And she’s warm and real and reminding him that he is also warm and real.  And suddenly he can’t imagine himself anywhere else, so he tightens his hold around her, holding her to him in case she’s the one that decides to escape.

“I _felt_ that,” she says against his neck.  “I felt you getting lost out there.”

“I wasn’t lost,” he says, and she nods, but doesn’t say anything else, because neither of them are certain.  He brings a hand up, holding her head, and resting his forehead against her shoulder, the solidity of her reminding him that he’s here.

He pulls away first, after the aftershock has worn off and he feels like himself once more.  The bond between them filtering emotion back and forth, her relief mixing with his disbelief, melding their Force together until he’s not sure his feelings are his own.

Ben can’t help it.  He reaches up, lightly caressing her cheek, his hand large enough that it nearly covers half her face.  His thumb outlines the bone there, the freckles beneath it, so many more than he thought.  Like she had constellations across her face.

“I’m here,” she answers the question he didn’t even know he was asking.  She brings her own hand up, folding it around his, holding him in place.  “I’m not going anywhere.”  And he nods, because he can’t think of anything to say.

They stare at each other for a few minutes, as his tension subsides from his vision, before she pulls his hand from her face.  She doesn’t let it go, though, as she walks him to the back of the temple room, where a large bolder sits on the open face of the mountain.  She perches there, and he realizes that she’s holding the parcel with her lightsaber wrapped up inside.  She’s got another one at her hip, a familiar hilt he thought he’d never see again, and her quarterstaff across her back.

“This is where I have to do it,” she says, patting the rock beneath her.  “I think.”

“Seems plausible,” he says, taking a deep breath, afraid it’ll be ripped from him again.  The air here is clean and full, the Force energy surrounding the temple and flowing through it, strong but not devastating like the water.  She sets her pieces out, the one full hilt, and her quarterstaff, staring at the parts like she expects them to begin moving on their own.

“The manual?” he asks, and her eyes widen, reaching into her tunic and pulling out the folded piece of paper.  She scans through the words, and he can feel her excitement mounting, her intensity nearly drowning her.  She’s shaking.

Putting his hands on her shoulders – freely, surprising himself and her more – he pushes calming thoughts through the bond, reminding her to breathe, to slow down.

 _It won’t happen all at once,_ he reminds her.  She nods, evening out her breathing, and starts reading again.  This time, she’s able to absorb the information.

“The Force,” she says as she reads.

“It binds everything,” he says, his thumb moving in slow circles against her shoulder blades.  “And, if properly used, it can combine pieces of a puzzle.”

“Like this puzzle,” she clarifies, and he assures her that she knows what she’s doing, if she’d just focus and relax.  “I can’t focus with your hands on me like that.”

“Sorry,” he mumbles, pulling away from her and stepping around, and she chuckles.  She finishes the instructions and takes a slow breath, handing them back to him.  He folds them up and tucks them into his tunic, watching her as she takes another slow, calculated breath.  She closes her eyes, her hands hovering over the three weapons before her.  He feels the Force as it wraps around her, coating her in its energy, surrounding both of them.  Her hands are shaking.

“What if I can’t?” she whispers to herself, and he shakes his head, resisting the urge to touch her again.

“You’re so much stronger than you realize,” he says, trying not only to say it, but will her to believe it as well.  “You can do this.  I believe in you.”  No matter how true, he never expected such a statement to come from him.  He’s startling himself over and over this day.  Something about this island is eliciting a lot of unintentional responses.

She opens her eyes, not reflecting his bewilderment for once.  “And you’ll be here when I’m done?”  She sounds so small, so childlike.  He almost wants to laugh, to ask her the same question.

“Where else would I go?”  She smiles, closing her eyes again, tugging the Force around her like a cloak, burying herself in it.

He watches her quietly, allowing her to reach out, find what she’s looking for in the vast web of the Force he’d succumbed to earlier.  It takes a few minutes, but Skywalker’s saber is the first thing that begins moving, and her Force manipulates it, each piece slowly disconnecting from the other until the shining green kyber crystal is revealed.  As soon as the pieces are apart, she brings her hands up, pulling the crystal from the segments without touching it.

 He’s awed by her abilities, not for the first time.  It all seems to come so naturally to her, and she’s so strong, the Force weaving in and out of her as if it belongs there.  This doesn’t take practice or stress on her part, she just imagines it and it happens.

 He remains with her for a while, until she’s pulled apart some of the pieces of her quarterstaff, as well, before he decides to explore more, noting that she hasn’t touched either crystal yet.  He’s curious to see what happens when she does, though he imagines it’ll be awhile before that happens.  She’s currently lost in the void of the Force, building her saber with two Skywalker crystals.  Like everything that happens on this island, he’s not perturbed by such a thought, no longer angry at her for finding Anakin’s saber before he did.

Ren pointedly avoids looking at the mosaic, knowing he needed to stay conscious in case anything tried to attack her, distanced as she is in her current state.  Though he’s not sure there’s any real danger on this island, outside of the ridiculous birds that haven’t stopped screaming once.  He walks down the island, back toward his Upsilon, to get a nutrition bar.  He hikes back through the village, and the fish women are nowhere to be seen.  Stopping outside of Skywalker’s hut, he glares in.  Rey had left the door propped open, and he could see the small, humble life that had once lived inside.  There are outlines of trinkets against the shady sun, funny things shining oddly in the light.

With a slow breath, he approaches the hut, having to duck down to get through the doorway.

There’s a small cot, a fireplace with a pot still hanging above it, shelves full of books.  He rifles through it all, curious to see how the man he’d hated so thoroughly for years had lived in isolation.  There’s a small beaded thing, elongated like a necklace, the medal he got upon blowing up the Death Star, a hair ornament he recognizes as his mothers and quickly turns from.  And there’s a small metal box, round, and he picks it up, thinking perhaps it’s something he should recognize but doesn’t.  Ren continues circling the small area.

He sees where she found the lightsaber, a locked box she must’ve pulled from underneath the bed.  Bending down, he digs through the contents for a moment, before sighing and standing up.  There’s nothing in here.  No answers to questions he can’t ask, questions he doesn’t know he’s asking.

Stepping back outside, finding it hard to breathe when so thoroughly surrounded by the same Force he’d been chasing for years, he looks at the small round thing in his hand.  It clicks open, revealing a compass within, though it wasn’t any artifact he recognized.  He could only tell by the weight and carvings of it that it had to be incredibly old.  There’s a blue stone that holds the dial in place, and he clicks it closed, slipping it into his pocket.  Not the first time this week they’d managed to rob a dead man, anyway.

It’s a slow walk down to the Upsilon, giving him time to think.  This is the first time he and Rey haven’t been side-by-side in days, and he feels her absence so thoroughly he wants to hit himself.  She’s not far enough away to constitute him fretting over her well-being, and he can simply reach across their bond if he wants to make sure she’s not in distress, but he finds himself checking on her every five minutes regardless, as though he’ll blink and her Force will suddenly disappear.

Still, he’s trying to be realistic and remind himself that this can’t last.  No matter how easy it’s been the past week, their time together is rapidly drawing to a close, and they’ll each have to go back to their respective positions on opposite sides of this war, waged by the people who tried to take power before they were born.  And she’ll have to kill him, because after everything they’ve been through, the one thing he’s now absolutely certain of is that he can’t kill her.

But, he knows now that he never could have.

He goes back to the battle in the throne room, when she’d reached for her lightsaber instead of his hand, and he reached back.  When they’d been concentrating so hard on getting that hilt that it had literally ripped in half.  Because, as much as he wanted her to stay, as much as he needed her beside him from the beginning of all of this, she couldn’t have that lightsaber.

In the beginning, he just told himself that he wanted it.  It was his by birthright, something to add to his collection, and he’d barely convinced himself that that was the truth.  He knew now that it wasn’t.

If she’d won, if it had flown into her hands, he may as well have dropped to his knees and begged her to run him through.  He knows he wouldn’t have beckoned his lightsaber, wouldn’t have ignited it or tried to ward her off.  Wouldn’t have been able to fight her.  Even with all the rage in the galaxy compelling him, he couldn’t hurt her.

She’s had all of the power between them since the beginning.  That’s why he chased after her to Tatooine with little thought, why he pulled her to safety against the Tusken Raiders, why his stomach had dropped to his feet when she rushed toward those bounty hunters.

In any given situation, as long as she was with him, he was at her mercy.

It enraged him, knowing full well what his greatest weakness was, what anyone could use to exploit him, and not being able to quell it.  Because she was his weakness against anyone, but especially himself.

The Upsilon sat where they’d left it, and he realized with a groan that they’d left the ramp down, and those fucking birds had made their way inside like they owned it.  He was tempted to pull his lightsaber out, destroy each and every one of them, but he knew Rey would be furious once she finished her meditating.

Spending the next hour making sure all those blasted birds were not roosting within their ship, he grabbed a handful of nutrition bars, shoving them into Rey’s duffel, along with a couple liters of water.  He made sure to close the ramp this time, and had to reign in his anger as the little beasts crowded around his feet like he’d forsaken them.  He nearly kicked them like a limmie ball, shouldering her duffel as he walked back up the mountain.

 It didn’t enrapture him quite the way it had when he’d walked with Rey, but he could still compliment the island’s beauty for what it was.  Though the clouds were hanging precariously low, ready to spit water at any given time, there was a serene feeling about the island.

He avoided Skywalker’s hut.  Down from that one was the remains of another that had seemed empty at the time of its destruction.  He put his hands on the rubble and noticed the vague leftover trace of Rey’s signature within the stone and, much to his surprise, his own.

 He remembered when they’d touched across the bond, how it hadn’t been like they were in two separate places.  How he’d nearly transcended the galaxy to sit beside her, though she had seemed to bridge the distance, her figure within his chambers.  But he remembered looking, once they were interrupted, and _feeling_ Skywalker’s signature as it burst in on them.  He couldn’t see the man, but he could hear him shouting “No!”, as though what was happening between him and Rey was of any concern of his.  And, as the bond ripped her away, he thought he heard the crumbling of rock.

 Had Luke torn apart this hut to pull him away from her?  It seemed like something dramatic he would do, anyway.

Ren sighed, turning to the hut across from Skywalker’s.  It also appeared empty, and he trudged inside.  The interior was old, but it seemed clean.  He tested the bedroll, pressing his hand into the mattress, and it held pretty firmly, so he set her duffel down, shuffling out of his cloak and throwing that down as well.  Her bedmat was tied up with the bag, and he knew the ground of the hut would be softer than that of his ship, so sleeping there shouldn’t issue another argument between them.

He ate as he walked back up toward the temple, feeling Rey’s aura as she concentrated, drawing the Force in to make a weapon.  Something critical was happening, and he hurried his steps, taking the stairs of the temple two at a time as he rushed to her.

She was sitting with both of her arms outstretched, various pieces of the sabers strewn about her, floating in the air.  Her hands were fisted, and he realized she must have the crystals curled in her fingers.  Her breathing was shallow, like she could barely contain herself, and he was tempted to stop her.  Infusing so much Force into one crystal could be tiring – two might be overwhelming.  But he watched, instead, not interfering.  If she believed she could manipulate it in such a way, then she could.

He watched her for some time, as the sky finally opened up and poured rain down on both of them.  She didn’t react at all, so he stayed, not minding the rain as long as it didn’t bother her.  She looked impossibly like an angel, her body wrapped up in the elements as the wind whipped around her, loosening her hair from its braid, water cascading down her face, and he had to take his eyes off her.  He crossed his legs, willing himself into meditation, knowing that he’d be nudged back to reality somehow when it changed.

After hours, he felt something like a hand flash all the way up his spine, leaving a trail of goosebumps, and he opened his eyes, watching curiously as the pieces of metal finally began moving from their resting places in the air.  She unconsciously drifted through the usable versus unusable parts, laying down the two ignition chambers first and building two hilts around those.  He was surprised, expecting her to build one long one, but he didn’t question it.

Finally, her hands opened, and Ben couldn’t help but gasp as the kyber crystals within her grasp emerged.  He was expecting them to remain the same, a cool blue and a striking green, each the echo of his family members bound to her.  Instead, he watched each of them flickering.  Their original colors changed, morphing around her Force, until each was not blue or green, but a bright, vibrant amethyst.

The crystals found their way into the chambers, and the pieces of Anakin’s saber melded with pieces of Luke’s, each connected through various parts of her own quarterstaff, bridging the gaps between each weapon until they were one.

Surprisingly, the two hilts rippled, drawing closer together until they turned against each other, locking into one, and a completed blade floated down to sit before her.

It had only taken a half day to build her lightsaber, much to his consternation.  He remembered his padawan days well enough to know that, while he’d taken mere hours to build his own, most of his class was immersed in their meditation for two days or longer.

Half a day was nearly unheard of, but he knew he shouldn’t be surprised.  She was incredibly gifted in every way, why would this be any different?

 Her eyelashes fluttered as she opened her eyes, and the discarded pieces of metal abruptly dropped, clattering to the ground around her.  She found his eyes, both of them soaking wet, then looked down at the completed piece before her.

And she collapsed.

He jumped up to catch as her body slumped to the left, nearly careening off the boulder.  She was breathing heavily, her energy spent so completely after infusing two crystals and essentially building two lightsabers.  He leaned her against his chest, making sure this was a sleep she’d wake up from, fretting like a mother hen.  She was alive, nearly on the verge of consciousness.  Just overly exhausted.

With a grumble, he gathered her into his arms, grabbing the lightsaber and tucking it under his arm as he hoists her up.  Even saturated as she is, she’s still ridiculously light, her body barely weighing more than the clothes he wears.

He sets her down on the hard stone within the temple, not exactly sure what to do.  He could leave her, let her wake up on her own, but even before the thought is complete in his mind he shakes it away.  He’s not just going to abandon her.

They’re both thoroughly soaked, and he shrugs out of his tunic, feeling mildly uncomfortable as he wrings it out on the stone floor.  As though he’s somehow desecrating the temple.

 Rey begins coming to then, and he watches her as she opens her eyes, groaning as she sits up.  He can feel her mind across the bond, muddled with her spent energy, as she looks at him.  He realizes, perhaps too late, that she’s just been rendered unconscious unintentionally and he’s standing a mere three feet away, holding his tunic, with his undershirt clinging to his torso in a way that isn’t leaving much to the imagination.

Most of these are her thoughts, shoved across the bond as she covers her eyes in embarrassment, and he quickly tugs the tunic back over his head.  He notes, with some amount of pleasure, that buried under her embarrassment is a brief flash of desire.

“Again,” she groans, and he can’t help but smirk.  Though he wasn’t accustomed to anyone seeing him in any state of undress, Ren’s body was sculpted through years of intense endurance training, and he had no reason to be self-conscious.

She peeks at him through her fingers as he sits in front of her, sighing when she realizes he’s fully clothed once again.

“You were too excited,” he begins after a moment, and her cheeks flare to life under his indecorous verbiage.  He clears his throat, trying not to see her thoughts in his mind.  “To build your lightsaber.  You exerted too much energy.”

 “Did you feel it this time?” she asks, slightly horrified, but he appeases her when she shakes his head.

 “I could tell.  As soon as it was finished, you nearly fell off the cliff.  You were desperate to finish it, weren’t you?”

“I don’t think desperate is the right word,” she says, pulling the hilt into her hands from where he’d laid it next to her.  It was long, longer than the length of her arm.  “Is it purple?”

“How did you know?”

 “I saw it,” she said, lifting it carefully, as though it’ll break if she’s not delicate enough.  “In my mind.  I saw the stones turning, blaring from green to blue to red to yellow, until they settled on purple.”  She stands slowly, her hair and clothes dripping.  He stands, as well, taking a step back as she ignites the saber.

The first blade comes to life just a millisecond before the second, each of them spitting out a smooth, incredibly graceful-looking lilac stream of energy.  She whirls it slowly, and it lists through the air like a dream, buzzing familiarly.

“How does it feel?”

“Amazing,” she replies, awed by her own creation.  “Natural.”  She brings her other hand up, holding the middle of the blade, before she twists each side.  The hilt crackles, separating in two, and Ren’s eyes widen.  That was why it’d been divided when she built it.

She whirls both of her blades in the air, her hands maneuvering them easily, as though she’d always wielded her weapon this way.  He can feel the cool aura coming off them, even from his distance, and he knows that dancing against those blades would be a death sentence.

 “I can tell which one is Anakin’s,” she says as she connects the two pieces back to one.  He raises an eyebrow and realizes as she powers down her weapon that she has tears in her eyes.  “Anakin’s sings to me, and Luke’s is…abrasive, almost.”

“I told you, they’re basically alive,” Ben responds, taking a step toward her.  Her hands have tightened around the hilt, no longer afraid of breaking it now that she’s seen the power in her blades.  “They know who their master is.  Skywalker’s crystal attracted him for a reason.  You merely found it.”

“Will it hate me, then?” she asks, and he realizes why her tears are spilling down her cheeks, overcome with her own potential failure.  “Master Luke wasn’t a fan of me coming to this island at all.  Will he haunt me this way?”

 “No,” Ben replies easily, knowing the truth as he speaks it.  “It just has to get used to you.”  She nods, not entirely convinced.  She wipes her tears away, tries her best to give him a smile.

“Did you wait out there with me the whole time?” she asks, finally taking in his drenched form, his unruly hair drying absurdly.  It was cute, in a strange sort of way.  While he typically looked regal, the fact that his hair is able to wisp this way and that from some rain water is endearing.

He runs his hand through it, and it pushes back easily, ruining the illusion of his humanity, much to her dismay.

“No, I had to clear the ship of those…birds,” he stops himself from cursing.  “And there’s an empty hut in the village I thought we could use.”  She nods, a smile on her face.

 “They’re called porgs,” she says simply, walking toward the doorway.  He follows after a beat.

“They’re annoying,” he responds, and she laughs.

“You get used to them.”  They take the stairs slowly, her descent marred by her exhaustion.  She’d been diligent in her construction of her lightsaber, he could tell just by the ease at which it ignited and moved, but she’d exerted an inordinate amount of energy.

He didn’t respond to her, not knowing if they’d even have the time to get accustomed to the awful birds, simultaneously hoping they would.  She didn’t seem to hear him, focusing so intently on her own feet as she walked.  He was half inclined to pick her up and carry her, despite the protests he knew she’d give.  He didn’t.

 As they walked back out into the rain, she looked up, eyes blinking as the water brushed down her face.  She looked at ease, peaceful even, with the torrent that fell from the sky.  He watched her as she outstretched her hands, catching it and letting the rivulets run down her skin.

 “You like rain,” he says after a moment, and she looks up at him.  They’d fallen into step beside each other.

“It never rained on Jakku,” she replies.  “Not even once, my whole life.  It’s beautiful, don’t you think?  This planet is so full of water that it has nowhere else to go, so it rises up into the sky, stays there for a while, and then comes back down.”

 He’d never thought about rain much.  But he looks up, trying to see it through her eyes.

The village is barren of the caretakers once more, and they shuffle into the hut together.  There was a pile of wood in the corner of the room, and he throws a few pieces into the center pit.  He then pulls his lightsaber off his belt, igniting it with a crackling hiss.  Rey jumps, nearly falling over as she turns around, backing away from him with wide, confused eyes.

His eyebrow quirks as he dips the blade into the wood, igniting the dried pieces before sheathing his saber and clicking it back into his belt.  She breathes shakily, a hand coming to rest over her rapidly-beating heart.  She looks into his eyes, then looks away after a moment, unable to face him.

 “There are simpler ways to start a fire, you know,” she says, trying to chastise him, but her voice cracks.  He stares at her.

“Did you think I was going to kill you?” he asks after a moment.  She glances up at him, her voice lost somewhere in her throat, because she doesn’t have an answer.  He feels her emotions, extending himself into her mind fully, finding that latent fear, that disbelief, and beneath it all, the acceptance that this had become her fate.  She’d resigned herself to falling at his blade.

She didn’t even think to ignite her own, despite being so giddy over her shiny new toy.

And he realizes her conclusion, like he had his own just hours ago, that she never had any intention of fighting him, no matter what their fates came down to.  Like him, she is afraid of the overwhelming certainty within her that, if it came to a showdown between the two of them, she’d fall at his hand, because there would be no other choice for her.  It leaves her raw and gaping, full of shame and fear and some other emotion he couldn’t focus on, one that was awakening within him, as well.

His words are lost, so he just stares at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO AND HAPPY STAR WARS DAY TO ALL OF MY WONDERFUL READERS.
> 
> So to celebrate both Star Wars Day AND Cinco de Mayo my work brought out the margarita machine. After two of the STRONGEST goddamn margaritas I have ever had and four beers I am officially drunk. Which, in layman's terms, basically mean I did not edit it at all, so if there are any mistakes and inconsistencies, I am probably not sorry. (Am not sober enough whoops)
> 
> My favorite part of this chapter is that I used the word fucking for the first time while Ben was describing porgs.
> 
> Also it's a bit long and I am also not sorry about that.
> 
> Have I mentioned that I have the best fucking readers in the entire universe because holy shit I love you guys. Like. I wish I could invite you all over for dinner. I would make ramen and we would have a fantastic time.
> 
> So someone asked something about why Ben did something at the end of the last chapter (I cannot remember in my inebriated state and I probably shouldn't be talking about how intoxicated I am but it's too late) and basically the answer is no. Ben tries VERY HARD to stay out of Rey's head for the most part. Most of the time, if he's breathing harshly, he's trying to calm himself down.  
> They also asked what level of "falling for each other" they were at, and like Ben is WELL AWARE that Rey will be the end of him. Rey is a little bit more hesitant to confront her feelings, but I'd wager to say that Ben recognizes his feelings for Rey a bit more in-depth than the vice-versa of that sentence. Rey is very smol and innocent.
> 
> But like. Not for long. If you know what I mean.
> 
> *wink wink*
> 
> Yes I am Trish and my readers are amazing and if you leave me more kudos I will cry again but do NOT let that deter you from leaving me kudos because I promise they are happy tears. I will update again on Tuesday so we can sort out this cliff-hanger that I think I left you guys on.
> 
> I love you all.


	18. in which these two space nerds finally stop being so dumb. for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, Venus by Sleeping At Last pairs well with this chapter.

Armitage Hux stares out across the bridge, watching as his soldiers march back and forth, going through drill exercises, honing their training; keeping their skills as sharp as a tack.  The pride he feels at their utter devotion to him is marred by his knowledge of their expected devotion to the Supreme Leader.

Kylo Ren was an insufferable shell of a man.  Hux knew little about his origins, only knowing the Supreme Leader as he took on an apprentice.  A strange looking fellow, far too tall, ears too big, nose abnormally large; he walked like he had a rod shoved straight up his backside.  Supreme Leader Snoke gave him the name of Kylo Ren some months after his arrival, referring only to Ren as ‘The Apprentice’ prior.  For nearly a year it was all the Supreme Leader spoke of; the arrival of The Apprentice, the training of The Apprentice, the extended absence due to The Apprentice, how to not commune with The Apprentice, to steer clear of The Apprentice.

It was infuriating.  Before Ren’s arrival, Hux was certain _he_ would be rewarded by becoming some type of sole student beneath the Supreme Leader for all he had done.  Training the Stormtroopers, promoting Phasma as his second, conspiring and succeeding in killing his father, Brendol Hux, as he was far too close to the situation.  Had plans of overrunning the Stormtrooper academy, making the admission of students voluntary.

So similar to Ren’s voluntary soldier plan, though Hux could admit to himself that that plan had gone off relatively without a hitch.  Programming his troopers took decades – and wasn’t without fault.  At the desertion of FN-2187, Hux and Phasma had worked tirelessly for days to re-prescribe a better training strategy, pulling every trooper in FN-2187’s graduating class and reprogramming them, making sure there were no other loose screws in Hux’s machine.  The voluntary soldiers, however, required mere months of training before combat, and were committed to the Order to a fault.  None of them had even attempted to abscond, despite Ren insisting there be no death penalty.

However, they were not Stormtroopers.  Molded to perfection, but there was always a loose thread, even in the most intricately woven fabrics.  That thread had, unfortunately, run off and joined the Resistance.  Ren had been so sure he’d been killed on Starkiller by his own hand, but then he’d reappeared aboard the Supremacy, taking out Phasma.

Hux stopped himself.  That was a spiral of thoughts he refused to be led down again.

Now, Ren had run off to his disgusting Knights on Mustafar.  He was their leader, Hux reminded himself, but even the thought dripped sarcasm.  He was the leader of the whole kriffing galaxy, and it was only by Hux’s hand that everything hadn’t fallen apart as soon as Kylo Ren took over.

After the death of the Supreme Leader, of which Ren’s explanation seemed horribly implausible.

Once things had settled, Hux commanded that the security footage from Snoke’s lift be uploaded to his holopad, only to learn that the files had been destroyed when the ship had been torn in half.  Which made absolutely no sense to Hux.  Those datafiles were meant to be encrypted and back-loaded into a hundred different computers, and they shouldn’t have been able to be destroyed.  The Supreme Leader had made certain that every conversation with Kylo Ren be recorded for later repurpose.  Though Hux had no idea what those conversations entailed, he’d attempted to find out upon the Supreme Leader’s death – and couldn’t.

Another question left unanswered.

If Hux didn’t know any better, he would assume the current Supreme Leader – off chasing the murderess through the galaxy, though Hux had a sneaking suspicion Ren would return empty-handed – had somehow managed to get his hands on those files.  Using his magic Force or whatever, making Hux’s officers do his bidding and intercepting the information before Hux had the opportunity.

Ren was smart, Hux could give him that.

But not nearly as smart as Hux himself.

As soon as Ren had made way to Darth Vader’s castle – where that obsession came from Hux preferred not to know – to meet up with his other disgusting Force-wielders, Hux got to working on the plan he’d begun forming the first day Ren took over leadership.  The disaster on Crait had solidified what Hux already knew – Ren was unstable, not fit to rule.  If he was gone, the First Order would thrive with more success than Supreme Leader Snoke had ever dreamed of.  Ren was holding them back from their true potential.

A mistake Hux was not inclined to replicate, once he obtained control.

He knew well enough to know that the Knights of Ren posed another tribulation altogether.  His first instinct was to shy away – he knew the power of the Force, had been victimized by both Ren and Supreme Leader Snoke with it.  Force-sensitives were part of his Stormtrooper screening process – if a child showed any inclination toward that garbage manipulation, they were cast out immediately, disposed of before their talents could be exploited.

So of course, it would be another one of those horrid sorcerers that would be the downfall of his Supreme Leader.  It would be Luke Skywalker, master manipulator of that dead religion, that caused the downward spiral of Kylo Ren, new Supreme Leader.

It only made sense that a non-Force wielder would be the one to dethrone the galaxy of that mystic power once and for all.  Not only had the New Republic been formed and ultimately controlled by the Skywalker twins, with all their strange abilities – the Empire, with Darth Sidious and Darth Vader, even the Old Republic used Jedi influence to do their bidding.

“General,” one of his officers said, snapping Hux out of his reverie.  He looked at the young man – by the name of Creed, the ascent of his career promising and direct – and nodded for him to continue.  “We’ve decoded the archives.”  Hux smiles.  It was by the grace of the gods that Ren had chosen to continue his exploration for the scavenger, extending his departure by a few extra days.

“Excellent,” he responds, clicking his tongue.  “Have them sent to my database.”

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Did you think I was going to kill you?"

Rey fists her hands at her sides, tucking her thumbs, and she can’t face him because she felt him in her mind, seeing her emotions just as she was realizing them herself.  She feels that potential in her chest, potential at what this could be, what it means for her, for them.

And then her mind is being projected back his walk from this afternoon, the same thoughts floating through his head, no matter how much he wills them to be lies.  But he’s convinced she’d be the one to kill him, when it came down to it, and that is overwhelming and terrifying.  Knowing now that he was ready and willing to have her take his life and being so absolute in the fact that she couldn’t.

Her body moves of its own accord, brushing past him in a brisk walk and finding the rain again.  Because this is real, but it can’t be, and they’re both convinced of something that is impossible.  That one will have to kill the other, but neither of them can be the one to do it.

And she’s so ashamed because for a half-second in that hut, when he’d turned his saber on, the spitting, crackling, angry thing that it was, she felt fear and betrayal and disbelief.  He was about to kill her, after bringing her to the recesses of the galaxy so she could build her own lightsaber, after saving her life twice on Tatooine, after making her believe in herself for the first time.

And beneath all of that, like a tiny whisper in the back of her head, she’d felt relief.  All at once, she realized she wouldn’t have to be the one to kill him and end their mutual turmoil.

She’d had to constantly remind herself since the beginning that she was becoming dangerously close to the enemy, that she was literally sleeping with someone who wanted to kill the only family she’d ever known.  The man that killed his own father, caused her master to die prematurely.  But when she looked at his face, his drowning brown eyes, the moles that obstructed his skin, the scar she’d given him, all she saw was Ben.  And he was a different person than the one who had torn apart Poe’s mind, nearly paralyzed Finn, brought her in handcuffs to his master.

Those were acts committed by Kylo Ren.  Not Ben Solo.  And it was alarming how easily her mind differentiated the two.

There was no way she could live with this.  No way she could be thrown into such a roller coaster, no way those emotions she’d been trying desperately to ignore would come to fruition now, with him, of all people.

She felt him closing the distance between them in the rain, and her emotions soared to reaches she never thought possible. She was frightened.  She was ardent.  She was desolate.  But most of all, she was angry.  Because his saber had come alive in that hut, and she’d been relieved that he was finally going to use it on her.  She knew his whole being would live that much easier if she weren’t alive, so why couldn’t he just let her die?

And it’s an absolutely insane thought, full of so much conviction she whirls around to face him, the anger breathing down her neck, trying to coat her like a second skin.  Because she didn’t want to die, had never wanted to, but she didn’t understand why _he_ didn’t want her to die.

“Why?” she shouts at him, her hands coiled at her sides like she’s getting ready to pounce.  He stops advancing, within reaching distance of her.  “Why even save my life?  Why save me from Snoke, from the sand people, from the bounty hunters?”  She’s screaming, tears streaming down her face, and she feels him mirroring her anger as she lists his transgressions.  “Why follow me?  You’d be better off, wouldn’t you?  Why not let me die!?”

He actually recoils at the words before he rears back, his own temper flaring brightly against the darkness of the village, and he stalks closer to her.  So close she can see his lower lip trembling.

“What about you!?” he yells back, doing what he does best and turning this around on her.  “You could have killed me in the throne room and you didn’t!”

“I don’t want to kill you!  I never did!”

“Right, so Starkiller never happened.”  How _dare_ he throw that back in her face?

“That was different!  I didn’t know _you_!”

“Semantics!” he cries.

“You’re avoiding the question!”

“What makes you think I want to kill you?”

“Oh please!” she scoffs, and they’re drawing closer to each other, cold everywhere but there’s heat rising between them.  Their words are mixing with the thunder until it’s hard to tell which is which.  “You dreamed about killing me as soon as I left!”

"That’s not true!”

“Isn’t that why you followed me to Tatooine!?  To finally get your shot at ending this!?”  And he’s already so angry that her words don’t drive into him like she intends.

“Do you not get it yet?” he shouts over the rain.

“Get what?  Enlighten me!”  His hands are fisted at his sides, and the words break free from his throat before he can stop them.

“I would follow you to every end of this _galaxy_ if it meant keeping you alive!”  She stops at that, pulling back, the anger dissolving in the rain.  The words take a moment to register, but when they do, her whole world ceases to exist outside of the space between them.

She doesn’t even have time to feel anything else before he closes the distance to her, bringing one hand up to her face as he crushes his lips against hers.

The shock consumes her for a mere second before she’s closing her eyes and kissing him back, wrapping her hands around his neck, desperate all at once to be closer to him.  Because this is what she’d been waiting for, even if she didn’t know it; even if she’d never intended for it to go this far.  Her mouth breaks open against his in a gasp, and she’s clinging to him as he brings his other hand up against her waist, pulling her flush against him.  And he’s both gentle and insistent as her bruises her lips with his own.

She swears there are brand new galaxies blooming behind her eyes, and he’s intoxicating and all-consuming, the warmth of his body against hers, the strong muscles of his back beneath her hands, the gentle caress of his hand against her face.  Their skin sings where it touches, the bond vibrating with the same urgency they’re projecting onto each other.

He pulls away first, as though he can’t believe his own actions and he’s trying to let her escape.  He doesn’t see, doesn’t know that she’s not trapped like he thinks she is.  She follows his lips like a dog follows a trail, pressing her own to them, not as urgently as he had but just as insistent.

The hand he’d had against her face trails down her jaw and settles on her neck, tilting her head back ever so slightly as he deepens the kiss, their lips moving clumsily together for a moment, bumping noses and teeth, until they find a rhythm that suits them both.  Nothing had ever felt like this to anyone else in the galaxy, she’s absolutely certain, no matter how vain such a thought might be.  And he tastes like berries and rainwater and _home_ , and that realization strikes her and brings fresh tears to her eyes.  They drip down her cheeks and mix with the rain.

She’s overwhelmed, melting in his arms, her fingers tangling in his hair, slick with water.  He’s so much, so fast, and she pulls away with a gasp.  Because it’s too much, and it’s not enough, and if she keeps kissing him she doesn’t know if she’ll ever be able to stop.

He rests his forehead against hers, not opening his eyes, his breath coming out in short gasps.  She feels his satisfaction, his uneasiness, his fear that he’d crossed a line, coupled with his mirror image of all her own emotions.  She sends him a silent reassurance, letting him know that no lines were crossed, that she wanted him to kiss her, even if she hadn’t known it at the time.  Because she’d never kissed anyone, never wanted to kiss anyone in all her years.  And then he blows into her life like a meteor blazing across her mind, and she’s so transfixed by him that she doesn’t remember anything else.

“Please don’t apologize,” she whispers as he opens his mouth to do just that.  His anger is gone, as well, replaced by something else altogether, and she’s never truly known what desire was until she feels his enveloping her from across the bond.  He closes his mouth, and they stand there for a moment, not speaking, just feeling.

This was how it was supposed to be.  Easy and effortless, despite their fight that already felt lightyears away.  She could look at him and forget about the politics, forget about diplomacy, even with her friends stuck in the far reaches of the galaxy and his subordinates turning over every rock trying to find them.

When it was just Rey, and just Ben, everything else somehow managed to melt away.

With a quiet sigh, she pulls away from his embrace, keeping contact by taking his hand.  It’s strange, not so long ago, she’d been abhorred when people wanted to touch her, embrace her.  She’s taken back to Jakku, when Finn had insisted on taking her hand every time he wanted to run, and she’d screamed at him to stop.  Then again, when he’d hugged her aboard Starkiller and it had been awkward, almost intrusive at first.  She’d been better about it the second time around but hadn’t had any intention of holding and never letting go.  Now, though, when it was Ben, and only Ben, she wanted to feel him, feel his skin, his hand as it wrapped around hers all the time.

She never wanted to stop touching him.

They walk, hand-in-hand, back to the hut, and she laces her fingers between his.  It’s effortless now, as though they’d broken down the last wall, the last defense against each other.  The last drip of the distance between them was closed, and she couldn’t stop this now if she tried.

They’re both soaked through completely, but the fire is still roaring.  Rey grabs an extra piece of wood, trying to make it even bigger.  She’s shivering, cold now that they’re out of the rain.  She unclips her belt and pulls her tabard off, using the rope from her duffel to rig a makeshift clothesline and hanging the dripping cloth on it.

Ben is watching her, standing in the corner of the hut with his wet hair dripping down his neck and face.  She unties her hair from its braid and rings it out, then moves closer to the fire, standing over it and trying to dry off.

“It’s warmer over here,” she says quietly, and he nods but doesn’t move.  She hears the thoughts as they drift through his mind, and she rolls her eyes.  “I won’t get embarrassed if you take off your shirts.  You’ll get sick if you just stand there.”  He sighs and edges closer, running his hands through his hair to dispel some of the excess water before he yanks his tunic off.

She’s struck again, despite her reassurances, by his body.  His taut muscles ripple under his skin, his sleeveless black undertunic clinging to the expanse of his chest, down his torso.  She realizes that his sleeves aren’t connected to either of his tunics, rather they’re another layer, the crisscross belt holding them together clipped beneath his undershirt on his back; compression sleeves, designed for battle.

“I thought you wouldn’t be embarrassed,” he says, and she looks away quickly, swallowing.

“I’m not.”  She crosses her arms defiantly, refusing to look at him, so she misses his smirk as it flashes over his face, and the way his eyes roam over her body.  Her tunic hung loosely without the belt to secure it in place, down to just a few inches above her knees.  Her pants clung at all times, but more so when they were wet, and her hair is a wild mess.

She looks like a hurricane, beautiful and feral.

She hears his assessment and feels the heat rising in her cheeks.

“I suppose we don’t have any food,” she says as an attempt to distract them both.  He walks across the hut, dangerously close to her, and grabs her duffel, rifling through it until he pulls out two nutrition bars.  She makes a face, taking it from him.  “I meant real food.”

“This is as— “

“Yeah, yeah,” she says, waving her hand and sitting down on the bedroll.  There’s a blanket folded at one end, beneath the cloak he must’ve discarded earlier.  “As nutritious as it gets, I know.  Tomorrow, though, I’m going to catch a fish and have _actual food_ for once.”

He sits beside her, opening his bar.  “I’ll have to indulge, then.”  She looks up at him, beaming, before resigning herself to eating her own dirt brick.  He procures a bottle of water, as well, and she takes it gratefully, not realizing how parched she’d become.

They sit quietly for a moment, finishing their meals and the water.  Rey grabs the blanket, wrapping it around both of them, because they’re still wet and it’s getting colder by the minute as they dry, despite the fire.

“Have you ever kissed anyone before?” she asks after a while, staring into the fire.  She’s sitting with her shoulder pressed against his, and it would be nothing to move so her weight is leaning into him, but she’s suddenly self-conscious and afraid to overstep his boundaries.  After all, he’d instigated the kiss before – who’s to say he wanted to repeat the act?  So instead, she picks the worst possible topic to ask about, the words tumbling out of her mouth without a filter, because she’s lost that to him, too.

“Yes,” he answers after a moment of hesitation.  Obviously, this wasn’t where he’d expected the conversation to start, either.  “Not for a long time.”

“Your padawan days?” she guesses, and he nods out of the corner of her eye.  “You’re pretty good at it, for being rusty.”  She glances at him, and he’s staring at his hands, clasped together between his knees.  She was hoping he’d laugh.  Instead, he just looks lost.

“What about you?” he asks, his voice soft, as if he doesn’t actually want the answer.

“No,” she admits, pulling her feet up onto the bedroll.  “When you’re in the desert, you don’t think about much besides your own survival.”

“And the Resistance…people?”  He stops himself from saying a slightly more derogative word, and she chuckles, despite herself.

“No,” she says again.  “Probably because all of that came after.”

"After?”

“Just because I… left doesn’t mean I forgot, I guess.  Even though I tried.”  He looks at her, and she can’t quite tell if he wants to push her away or kiss her again.  The emotion on his face is unreadable, in a language she can’t speak, despite the hours she’s spent trying to decipher it.  Because they both felt it back then, that pull to one another, even though they were desperate to fight it.

But it was in a hut on this planet, almost the exact same as this one they occupied now, that she finally allowed herself to look at him and _see_ him, see Ben, instead of the monster she’d wrongfully convinced herself he was.

She wouldn’t have been able to kiss anyone else after that, even if she had wanted to.

“You put my lightsaber back on my belt,” he says finally, holding her gaze in his own.  He looks at her like he can see right through her, like she’s both nothing and everything.  Maybe he can, and maybe she is.  “After we fought Snoke’s guard and destroyed your hilt.  I lost it against them, but it was back on me when I came to.”  She bites her bottom lip, willing herself to look away, but she’s drowning in his eyes.  Finally, she nods her assent, and he lets out a slow breath.

“The ship was destroyed,” she whispers, because her voice is suddenly too loud.  “It was going down.  And you were defenseless.”  She shakes her head, trying to look away, but he cups her cheek in his hand, so she can’t.  He needs to see her eyes as she talks.  “It was all I could think to do to help you.”

“I didn’t need— “

“I know.”

This time she leans up, closes the distance between them, letting her lips press against his softly.  He’s receptive, and all of her trepidation melts away easily.  Her hands dare across his chest, finding the thin undertunic and fisting her fingers into the damp fabric.  She slowly climbs to her knees, towering over him for once, as he angles his body toward her.

He’s a drug to her.  His lips send jolts of electricity from the top of her head to the very tips of her toes, her entire body becoming a livewire.  He sets his hands carefully on her hips, and she’s still not sure if he wants to run away or pull her even closer.

He opts for neither, instead letting her kiss him despite her inexperience, despite the fact that she’d never kissed anyone before, how it must be awful for him even though her entire being is on fire.

“Stop,” he groans, barely pulling away.  His lips brush hers quickly.  “Don’t think of yourself as lesser.  You’re not.”  She pulls back enough to look at him, and his eyes are already open, boring into hers.  She hears the words he can’t speak in his mind.

_You’re everything._

She kisses his cheek, his jaw, his neck, and he squeezes her hips when she falls down to the space where his neck meets his shoulder.  Asking her to stop but not really wanting her to.  She rests her head there, afraid of where this might go if she lets it continue.

He pulls her closer now, and she settles into his lap with her knees on either side of him.  Despite how cold their clothes are, she’s warm all over.  He brings the blanket back around her shoulders for good measure regardless.

Again, that safe feeling becomes known within her, and she sighs against his neck.  She wasn’t used to being both relaxed and safe; those terms were never mutually exclusive to her.  Wrapped up in his arms, though, she could begin to see how they might be.

Ben’s fingers slowly slide up and down the length of her spine, and it’s so soothing she’s tempted to sleep.

But this is their last night together, isn’t it?  Her mission is finished; the lightsaber is built.  He has no reason to continue helping her.  Do they go back tomorrow?  Back to the First Order, to the Resistance, to their opposing sides?

Will they come to a battlefield anyway, despite knowing they can’t kill each other?  Will they face down one another with lightsabers ignited and fight, even if it’s just to pretend?

Ben sighs against her, hearing her thoughts and echoing with his own.  He’s not a fan of having to keep up appearances to people who don’t matter, but he is the Supreme Leader and she is the last Jedi.

“I’m not a Jedi,” she says, trying to sound defiant but simply sounding defeated.

“You will be,” he counters.

“I don’t have to be,” she responds.  “I can walk the middle; we both can.”  But he’s shaking his head.

“There’s no middle.”

“It’s not all black and white,” she assures him.  “There’s gray, there has to be.  And that’s where I want to be.  In the gray.”  He doesn’t say anything, but she hears his thoughts as they tinker with the idea.  The gray, the middle.

The balance.

Just as he’d heard in his vision.

But if he goes back to the Resistance with her, it’ll be execution or exile.  He’s done so many terrible things, his crimes can’t be forgiven.  Even if she pleads his case, they’ll call her possessed.

And if she goes back to the First Order with him, half of his army will be gunning for her life, and his by association.  Bringing aboard the girl who killed Snoke and giving her a title.  They’d turn their backs on him in an instant, and Hux would take charge, the slimy scoundrel that he is.

He can’t find the gray, and despite her best, neither can she.

So he rubs soothing circles on her back instead.

“I don’t even know how to go back,” she says.  “I ran away.  I’ll bet they’re furious.”

“I’ve been away too long,” is all he says, and she nods.  Because his role in all this is vastly superior to hers.  She was nothing, after all; he said so himself.  “Don’t,” he says, so she stops.  She wraps her arms around his torso, holding him closer, because she can’t think of anything else to do.

“Can we have one more day?” she asks after some time passes; she’s not sure how much.  Her face is still pressed into his neck, and he’s got his own resting against her shoulder.  “I’d like to practice with my new lightsaber.”  It’s a ridiculous excuse, she knows, and she can tell he thinks so, too, when he smiles against her skin.  And he doesn’t respond, but she has her answer regardless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my lovelies! This chapter is brought to you by one-day-early Trish, who just found out yesterday that she's going out of town tomorrow so I don't think I'll have time to update then. But hopefully you guys are here for this?
> 
> Alright so first and foremost I'd like to apologize sincerely for my last update. I am not good at being drunk AT ALL and I inevitably make a fool of myself lol. But I shouldn't have subjected my readers to that. I thought about re-writing my notes but this is who I am as a person. Someone who makes a fool of myself at any given turn.
> 
> Anyway, enough of my personal embarrassment!
> 
> We finally got two - count 'em - TWO kisses. Maybe there's hope for these two yet. And Rey asking for another day - I thought that was cute.
> 
> What's that skeevy Hux up to anyway?
> 
> Also I know that Ben's saber was back on his person during the "Join me" speech BUT I like the idea that Rey was like "Well fuck I can't just leave him like this" after waking up in the throne room.
> 
> Your guys' comments on the last chapter gave me life. I don't think I've truly expressed how much I love you all, even though my drunken ramblings mentioned inviting you all over for ramen, which sober Trish would absolutely be down for. I just need a few thousand dollars for ingredients. Maybe I'll set up a go-fund-me. But that's probably as close as I can get to my feelings about my absolutely wonderful readers.
> 
> Leave me comments! Leave me kudos! Ask me questions that I can answer with the next update!
> 
> Also, I'm still taking song recommendations for chapters! Double also, someone stated that they wanted to follow me on instagram? I'm not sure if the rest of you have the same question, BUT unfortunately I do not have an instagram. I do, however, have a Tumblr - it's not fandom-based, but I post some fandom-centric stuff at times. It's www.makeshiftcandy.tumblr.com
> 
> You guys are the best! Thank you so much, I'll see you again on Friday!


	19. in which one space nerd goes exploring in the cave of wonders and then there's fish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, I Found by Amber Run goes well with this chapter.

They fall asleep like that, curled around each other, half of her body weight on his as she sleeps with her face against his neck.  Ben wakes up first, blinking through bleary eyes just as the first wisps of light begin filtering in through the windows of the hut, turning their hovel from black to gray.

It’s their final day.

He can’t bring himself to think about it.

Instead, he slowly untangles himself from her, despite his internal protests.  As soon as he gets up, it’ll be real that they only have one more opportunity to be like this.  But he can’t lay here, wrapped up in her and thinking of everything in his life that’s about to go wrong.

It will be wrong; he knows that with absolute certainty.  Being away from her will feel _wrong_ , tilting his world on its axis once more, though he’s sure this time the Force won’t throw him into quite the tailspin it had the day before.  But as soon as he’s alone, as soon as the cool air of morning hits him, he feels the pang of her absence in the heart he thought he’d buried years ago.  She’d resuscitated him.  Pulled his heart from his chest, the blackened crust of a thing it was, and forced it to beat until it was alive and healthy in her hands.

Inadvertently, he thinks of Snoke, the shell of a man who’d ripped into his chest and tried to tear out his heart in the first place.  He thinks of the mental anguish he’d sported for so many years, the whispers in his mind in a voice not his own, bringing that darkness that had steeled itself away in the caverns of his body before he knew his own name.  The voice that told him he was nothing, that no one wanted him, that he would destroy everything he loved.

He looks at Rey, sleeping peacefully tucked beneath the blanket they’d shared, and realizes that none of it was true.  As long as he could remember, he’d dreamt of a scared girl with brown hair and wide eyes, lost in her own mind in the desert.  He thought it’d been a fabricated tale of his own mind, part of him wishing there was someone out there in the galaxy lonelier than he was to make himself feel better.

She’d been real the entire time.

If he’d known, he would have gone out looking for her years ago.

_I’m not going anywhere_ , she’d said to him after his intense vision yesterday, and he wants so badly to believe her.  He wishes she’d stay.

Rule by his side.

Rule…what, exactly?

The galaxy was already in his hands, and he practically hurled it across the room to chase after her, to make sure she was safe.  He’d admitted as much last night.  He realized, with a start, that perhaps that wasn’t what he wanted anymore.  Perhaps it was never what he wanted.

His mind was a jumbled, blurry mess, so he rose from where he sat next to her on the bedroll and left the hut.  He’d explored very little of this island outside of the village and the temple, and his legs carry him away from all of it before he can ask them to.

The caretakers have risen with the sun, it seems, bustling about in their strange way.  They look at him as he brushes past but make no move to engage him.  Perhaps it’s out of respect, or perhaps they’re frightened of him.  He elects not to care either way.

As soon as he’s away from most other living creatures – there’s literally no escaping those absurd birds – he sinks to the ground.  He’d meditated some while Rey was building her lightsaber, but he was always dancing on the edge of consciousness, just in case she needed him.  He hadn’t truly gotten to _feel_ this island yet.

Closing his eyes, Ren reaches out.  His fingers skim over the delicate blades of grass, searching and finding that web that is almost a second home to him.  It lights up like a map of the stars, each pin prick of light representing a life force within reach.  And brightest of them all, right at the center, is Rey.  As though his entire construct of the Force is suddenly built around her.  Like she’s the sun, and his universe is orbiting her.

As if that’s unexpected.

No, it’s the push and pull of this island that truly interests him.  There’s so much energy, so much Force here, it’d literally taken his breath away as soon as he landed, but he wanted to know why.  And he wanted to know why Rey was able to so quickly immerse herself in it.  Distantly, he wondered how his uncle felt, but those thoughts were transparent, and they blew away like a breeze.

She’d allowed this place to submerge her above her head, and Ren felt like it’d barely brushed past his knees.  He wanted to be on her level, feel it all around him, close over him until he was one with the energy.  She probably didn’t even realize how fully it had integrated as part her of, as naturally as all of this seems to come to her.

He feels the light, the pull, and it’s stronger now than it ever has been.  Perhaps because she’s so close, a literal beacon in his otherwise dark and dismal life.  Calling him back to the shores like a lighthouse.

But beneath all of that, he feels the dark too.  The constant reminder of his past, of who he is.  Of Kylo Ren, the Supreme Leader.  He reaches out to touch it, and _sees_ it within the island, buried under the rocky shore.  It manifests then, trying to drag him under, and he fights, kicking back, digging his fingers into the soil as though he could claw his way out of its grasp until he wrenches himself free with a gasp.

And once he’s collected himself, Ben finds himself surprised he fought back at all.

 ...

Finding the cavity where the dark resides is easy after that.  It’s larger than he expects, the circumference of it taking up a vast majority of the ground.  As he moves closer, sees the black tendrils of vines that snake their way out of the ground, he realizes with mild relief that the fucking birds don’t come here.

The black creepers squish under his boots like moss as he moves closer.  The darkness is almost overwhelming here, as deep and vast as the well that was within his old master, though it doesn’t feel nearly as cynical, or nearly as cruel.  This place is more of an extension of the Force, a place where the light simply can’t reach.  But the light has to exist, for this place to exist.

Without any hesitation, Ren jumps down the hole.

He’s expecting the water, just from what he remembers discussing with Rey, back ages ago when she’d opened up to him across the bond.  What he’s not expecting is how kriffing _cold_ it is.  He jumps in expecting some lukewarm pool, and instead submerges himself into a vat of liquid ice.  He’d not put his tunic back on, so there was little barrier between him and the glacial waves.

He paddles quickly to the edge of the pool, desperate to get out of the water, no matter how cold the air might be on his skin.  His muscles spasm as he climbs out, arms covered in gooseflesh with the rush of cold air.  He stands slowly, taking in his surroundings.  The dark practically pulses with a heartbeat.  It caresses his skin, laps at his ankles like water, feeling so real and cosmic he looks down to make sure he’d stepped out of the pool.  His breathing echoes off the chamber, sounding far too loud, but when he holds his breath, the silence is deafening.

The mirror is there, just where Rey described it, and he walks up cautiously.  He’s wondering if he’ll experience just what she did, if he’ll see a thousand versions of himself, a finite number of selves leading to the answer to a question he hasn’t asked yet.

He touches the wall slowly, bringing his hand up, waiting to be enveloped in whatever it was that she’d described.

The frost on the mirror cracks under his fingertips, and he’s afraid he’s done something wrong.  Perhaps coming here was a bad idea.  Rey had come here because of the pull she’d felt, but she’d said it didn’t scare her.  He thinks of how he fought against it.  Was he scared?  He shouldn’t be.

He already was the darkness.

Another moment passes, and nothing more happens.

He pulls his hand away slowly and is suddenly surrounded.

It’s not quite what Rey described.  He doesn’t see a line of himself, staring at one end, looking for an answer.  Rather, he’s surrounded, a thousand, million versions of himself encompassing the space, shoulder to shoulder with each other.  And he’s no longer sure which version of him is the real one, because he can feel the ghost shoulders pressing against his own.  And they all have his black undertunic, his black shirtsleeves, his wet black hair, his black eyes.

He never realized before how black he was.

_Amber_ , she whispers in his mind, a distant memory.  _It was the color of your eyes in the sun._

And his eyes aren’t black anymore.  Or, they never were.  He takes a step closer, trying to see, and every version of himself takes that step with him.  But he realizes that he wants to, is desperate to look on himself and see what she sees.  Because despite the way she looks at him, the way her eyes soften, the way her lips part, he doesn’t understand how something as pure as she could look at him with anything more than contempt.

“What will I gain from all this?” he finds himself saying, because this place is drawing up the one true question within his chest.  And he should know better, because Rey didn’t get the answers she was seeking when she was here, but he can’t help himself.  And he remembers telling her that she had no place in this story, but as the days pass he’s having more and more trouble seeing his own.  Her path is so clear to him – the path of light, of righteousness.

His path seems more like a death trap.

The fog comes alive beneath his fingertips, whirling up like smoke.  It blots out every other version of himself until he sees the fogged shadows beneath the glassy rock.

And then the smoke peels away, leaving him staring at his own reflection, though the reflection is off in some way.

His hair is the same wavy disarray it normally was, the scar on his face is still his most prominent feature, a constant reminder of her.  A piece of him he’d never want to get rid of.  With a start, he realizes what’s different.

Rather than soaked undertunic, or even his black cloak, the cloak of the Supreme Leader, he sees the muted gray robes of the balance he’d been searching for with Rey since the beginning.

His eyes trail down, slowly, until he sees that his gray-cloaked hand is holding another in its grasp, wearing similar gray robes.  The rest of the figure is obscured behind the fog.  He pulls back, attempting to see, but the illusion shatters once he tries to look too closely.

He steps back with a gasp, his chest constricting painfully at the sudden and abrupt absence of his vision.  He stumbles, falling into the dirt.

He’d not just looked at the answers of questions asked by Kylo Ren.  He’d not seen Kylo Ren at all.

No, that mirror had faced him with Ben Solo.

His knees shake as he stands.  He has no idea how to feel, so he tries not to feel anything at all.  But this place isn’t allowing that, driving his feelings into his heart like a mallet.

Gray robes.

Not Jedi, not Sith.  Just gray. 

The way Rey wanted to be.

He thought of the hand in the vision and wanted desperately for it to be hers.  But the Force didn’t let him see, let him verify what he wanted so badly to be true.

_Ben?_   Her voice drifts into his mind, and he realizes he forgot to see if she was awake when he came down here.

“I’m fine,” he says out loud, feeling her worry across the bond.  His assurances don’t appease her.

_Did you go down beneath the island?_   Of course, she can see right through him.  He rubs his face, walking back toward the frigid water, readying himself to swim back through.  _There’s an exit to your left, beneath the hanging roots._

“Thanks,” he says, truly appreciative.  He feels her smile, can picture it in his mind clear as day.

_I’m not the strongest swimmer.  I had to figure things out._   He pushes his way through the roots, crawling through a narrow hole in the ground his broad frame has a hard time fitting through.  He manages, though, forcing his way through the tunnel until he breaks free, brushing dirt off his wet clothes.

She’s standing a hundred yards away, facing the cliff with her back to him.  He watches, curious, until she walks back a few feet, then runs and jumps.

His heart catches in his throat, and Ben runs.  There’s a good hundred-foot drop beneath her feet.  She just admitted that she’s not good at swimming, so she jumps off a kriffing cliff?  Into the ocean?

He runs up, just in time to see her on the other cliff face, holding what looks like an incredibly long pole vault.  The wind is blowing wildly through the two rock walls, and her hair is wrapped around her face, blowing this way and that, making her look like a mighty empress.  Or a goddess.  He can’t decide which.  Perhaps both.

She glances up at him with a coy smile on her face before she watches the water below, waiting for a moment before she sees the ripples.  She raises the pole vault out of the water, and he sees that it’s an incredibly long spear, as well.  Using all of her body weight, she lunges down, catching those ripples.  They thrash for a moment, and then stop altogether.

“What are you doing?” he calls, half-angry at her precarious attitude.

“I said I wanted fish,” she replies, bending her legs – her feet are dangerously close to the edge of the lip she’s standing on – and hoisting the spear out of the water.

The thing on the other end is not a fish.  It is a behemoth, some type of fish-shaped sea creature that looks straight out of a child’s nightmare.  “Grab it, it’s heavy!”

He manipulates the Force immediately, cradling the dead creature and pulling it up onto the land.  It’s massive, with the mouth agape, looking like it could swallow Rey whole.

She stands up straight, digging the spear back into the ocean floor beneath, before climbing a few feet up the cliff face.  Then, holding her weight against the pole, she brings her legs up beneath her and pushes off with all her strength.

Ben watches, holding the fish across his back, as she lands lithely on her feet.  She’s beaming up at him, her cheeks flushed with a wind rash.

“There are simpler ways to fish,” he says, nearly echoing her words about the fire from the night before as they make their way back toward the village.  She shrugs.

“I bet they’re not nearly as fun though.”   Ren can’t help but smirk.

This is how he loved seeing her.  She was carefree, relaxed, every bit the joyous person she had potential to be.  She dragged that attitude out of him, as well.  Or as close of an attitude as she could get from him.  She seemed content, though.

The caretakers seemed to have gotten their morning chores done, having vacated the village and left them alone once more.  Instead of going back into their hut, Rey marches toward the giant fire pit in the middle.  She uses wood and her flint to light a fire, making a point to stare at him as the wood catches.

He doesn’t react to her pointed stare, preoccupying himself by grabbing one of the sharper pieces of wood and skewering the giant ocean monster.  Rey sets up the larger spit that’s leaned against the hut as the fire livens up, and Ben carefully sets the fish over it.

“Thank you,” she says as he settles into the grass a few feet from the fire.  She sits beside him, leaning her head against his shoulder, and it’s the most natural thing in the world to wrap his arm around her, pull her in closer so she’s rested pressed against him.

They’re both still in their underclothes, and it almost feels like they’re cooking breakfast in their pajamas; completely domestic.  Rey looks up at him when the thought flashes through his mind unwarranted, her eyebrow raised, and he looks away quickly.

Instead, he thinks about various other things.  All of the work he’s sure is piled onto his desk – the last time he’d turned on a datapad, there was word of an outbreak of rebellion on one of their controlled systems’ planets, but he trusted Hux had the militant competence to take care of something so small.  It wasn’t a system Ren was too terribly worried about, being as near to the Inner Rim as it was, there should be a platoon of soldiers close enough that can deploy and take care of any small number of disturbances.  Worse came to worst, Hux issued an officer-controlled battalion of Elite Stormtroopers to the front, but he doubted it would come to extremes.

Rey sighs, getting up to turn the spit over the fire, then turns around to face him with her hands on her hips.  “Is there any way you could think about something other than _that_ when you’re here?”

He looks up at her, amused.  Her hair is wild around her head, tangled from the wind when she’d caught the fish.  Her eyes are light with a mixture of amusement and annoyance, and her black tunic was wrinkled from where she’d slept.

She was a vision if he’d ever seen one.

“What would you rather I think about?”

“Anything else,” she insists, kneeling in front of him.  “Lightsaber duels, Jedi lessons, anything.  Remember when you offered to teach me?”  She smirks at him.  “Teach me, then.”  Somewhere nearby, one of those damn birds squawks, having grossly impeccable timing.

“There’s nothing about the Force I can teach you that you haven’t already figured out for yourself,” he says, believing this implicitly, though she didn’t seem quite as convinced.

“Teach me something else then,” she responds.  “Teach me good lightsaber maneuvers.  Oh!  Teach me to stop a blaster bolt!”

“Do you have a blaster?”  She reaches for her hip instinctively, then sighs.

“I left it on— …at the Resistance base,” she says, barely catching herself from revealing to him pertinent information.  Though honestly, he doesn’t think he would have noticed if she’d let their hideaway planet slip.  He’s too fixated on her lips as they move around her words.

He looks around, then zeroes in on the fire.  “Come here.”

Ben expects her to sit at his side, as she had been, but instead, she crawls into his lap, making herself comfortable between his legs as he moves to make room for her body.  She’s very forward, and she knows it too, using it to her advantage, but he’s not about to complain.  Though the heat rises in his cheeks of its own accord.

“Close your eyes,” he says as soon as she’s settled.  She does, her back leaning against his chest, her legs out before them.  He has his knees propped up on either side of her, and she rests her hands on them lightly, making him swallow.  “Now, see the fire in front of you.  Envision it.  How does it feel?”

“Hot,” she says automatically.  “But not… burning.”

“It can’t hurt you from here,” he says, a light smile on his lips.  He grabs her hands, his palms resting against her knuckles, lacing his fingers between hers and pulling them in front of her so she’s outstretched toward the fire.  “What else?”

“It’s like a dance,” she breathes, leaning forward slightly, her fingers reaching.  “It’s alive, breathing its own Force, consuming itself.”

“You have the ability to make it stop consuming itself,” he says softly, leaning closer to her ear.  He feels her next move, the way the Force is wrapping around her, and squeezes her hands.  “Don’t extinguish it.”  She pulls back, trying to plot her next move, and he tries to project into her mind how it should feel.  “You said it was dancing.  Try and still that dance.  Bring it to a halt, as best as you can.  Feel its intent, so you can stop it.”

Rey takes a slow breath, then pushes out as close to the feeling Ben projected as she can.  Her fingers curl in as she focuses, pulling her energy from the island, from the light and the dark within it, trying to exert what she feels is the right move.

“Open your eyes,” he whispers.  She does, slowly, looking toward the fire.

It’s stopped moving completely, the flames that had been licking the darkened underside of their fish caught as though in a photograph.  She stares in wonder, the flames no longer devouring, just existing, like they’d found a sense of peace and wrapped themselves in it.

“But how will I know if someone is aiming a blaster at my head?” she asks, though her voice is still a whisper of wonderment and awe.  She didn’t truly think she’d be able to do it.

“The same way you block those bolts with your lightsaber,” he says, shrugging against her.  “You can always feel the intent of the person about to pull the trigger.  Rather than letting the bolt go, you can control it, manipulate it so it either hits your intended target or does no damage at all.”

She curls her fingers against his hand, and the fire kick starts, like it’s shaking itself off after being confined for too long.  The flames crackle for a moment before they settle.

“You think I can do it in a battle?”

“We can go back to the Upsilon if you’d like.  I’m sure there’s a gunner in there somewhere.”  She leans back against his chest, and he reaches out, using the Force to turn the spit so she doesn’t get up.

“I’d rather not,” she replies after a moment, and all he sees is their time together drawing to a close brushing across her mind.  She forcibly pushes the thoughts away, trying to focus on his hands around hers, his chest against her back, and Ren has to stop himself from reading too far into such thoughts.

“Tell me more about your childhood,” she says after a few minutes, and he sighs slowly.

“What do you want to know?”

“You said you were alone often.”  He nods his assent, not really wanting to delve too far into that.  “What about when you weren’t alone?”

“You mean, when…”

“When your mom and dad were home,” she fills in for him, when he can’t bring himself to say the words.  He takes a shaky breath.  He doesn’t want to talk about this, but he looks down at her hair, the smooth curve of her neck, the way their hands are interlocked, and he knows he’d never deny her anything she asked.

“We lived in a comfortably sized villa on the outskirts of Hanna City,” he begins.  “My…father wasn’t a big fan of the idea of neighbors, but Mother wanted to stay near where she could be available of the need arose – which it did often – so they compromised.”

She turns to face him, her back against one of his legs instead of his chest.  He adjusts his position as well, letting go of one of her hands, stretching his opposite leg across her lap.

“I’m surprised you don’t have any siblings,” she muses quietly, and he breathes slowly.

“I think they realized their mistake when they could barely be home to take care of one,” he responds, and her face falls.  So, he continues, “I spent a lot of my childhood studying with various tutors, which felt like a waste of time.”

“Because you wanted to be a Jedi?” she guessed, and he bites back a laugh.

“Much to the dismay of my mother, no.  My dad always told me about his adventures being a smuggler, before the war.  I wanted to do that.  Dirty dealings with various creatures all over the galaxy.  Daring escapes, having to have the mental fortitude to survive, no matter the cost.”

“Of course you did,” Rey says, rolling her eyes, but that smile is back, and he’s relieved.  “The real reason Leia sent you to Luke comes to light.  She didn’t want you to end up like Han.”

The way she says his family members’ names is so cavalier, he has to constantly remind himself that she knows them, too.  She isn’t some random girl he picked up off an asteroid who has never known another life outside of the one they’re living together.

She watched him kill his father.

He takes a deep breath, trying to push that memory away, when Rey reaches up, her hand resting gently against his cheek, feeling the guilt roiling beneath the surface.  She wants him to go on.

“We had a summer home, on Naboo, the birth planet of my grandmother.”  Rey nods, and he remembers what she said, about knowing Anakin’s life.  Of course, Padme Amidala would be a part of that, though he knows little outside of what his mother told him when he was a child.  “Mother always said she was strong and smart, though I didn’t find out until later that all my mother truly knew about her were her political accomplishments.”

“You look like her,” is all Rey has to respond, and Ben looks away.  He takes a breath, feeling it catch in his chest.  She seems to almost know his family even better than he does.

“We didn’t have the opportunity to spend a lot of time there, but I remember the house pretty well.  It was right on the beach, a quaint thing with two bedrooms.”  He glances at her, making sure he’s not overstepping her memories, as he’s sure their ideas of what ‘quaint’ means vary greatly.  But she’s got that curious expression on her face, so he opts to continue.  “I spent most of my time when we were there on the beach, or in the water.  It was nice, our short-lived vacations, because Mom always made sure Dad stayed with us, which I knew even back then was hard for him.”

“Why was it hard?”

“I don’t think he ever planned to settle down,” Ben replies with a shrug.  “I think my mom made him bend on that, too.  Either he leaves, and leaves her completely, or they get married and have kids.”

“Kid,” she corrects, and he can’t help but smile.

“He didn’t want to lose her, I guess.”

“That’s sort of endearing, don’t you think?”  He raises an eyebrow, and she squeezes his hand reassuringly.  “Not that he was gone all the time; that must have been so hard for you.  Just that he was willing to give up what he believed in to be with her.”

“He didn’t do it terribly well,” Ren retorted, trying not to dredge up all that old anger, but it’s hard.

Rey gets to her knees in front of him, freeing her hand from his and placing them both on his face.

“No,” she agreed, and she leans in to kiss him.

This was rapidly becoming his favorite past time.  The softness of her lips against his was a rush he never thought he’d experience.  Ben was certain a new galaxy formed every time their lips met, and he wasn’t ashamed to think such a thing.

However, after a moment, he pulled back.  “Unless you want to eat another nutrition bar…”

“Oh, kriff,” she shot up, grabbing a bucket of water and dousing the fire immediately.

She scraped the charred pieces of the underbelly off with a knife, gathering it up and spreading it a few yards away for the birds to feast on, which made Ren shudder.  If she fed them, they’d just keep coming back for more food.  These animals were abhorrently co-dependent.

She cut a huge chunk of the meat and slapped it onto a plate she’d procured from somewhere.  He was distracted by the birds, watching them hopping around and squawk like they’d never eaten a day in their miserable little lives.  Despite how incredible this planet was, he was suddenly certain he’d never come back.  Because of the birds.

“Here,” she said, handing him a plate and folding her legs beneath her as she sank next to him with her own giant hunk.  “Have some actual food for once, Supreme Leader.”

There were no utensils, clearly, so Ben crossed his legs beneath him and set his plate in his lap.  He watched Rey for a moment, tearing off bits of the meat and sticking bites that were probably a little bit too big into her mouth, smiling to herself.  She caught him staring and nudged him with her elbow, looking down at his plate and then back up at him.

Slowly, he tore a bit of the provender off.  She’d not skinned the creature, so beneath his glistening slab of red meat was a grayish-looking skin that had been colored by the fire.  Surprisingly, this made it a bit easier to tear off bite-sized chunks, so perhaps she had a method to her madness after all.

He popped the bit in his mouth, chewing slowly.  It was a rich flavor, hearty, not tasting at all like the ocean, as he expected it to based on prior experiences with seafood.  His taste buds were rightfully confused, having not consumed anything other than a nutrient bar in so many years.

But it was good, and he was pleasantly surprised.

She was nearly halfway finished with her portion by this point, opting to chew and swallow too much food instead of have a pleasant breakfast conversation, which suited Ben just fine.  He didn’t eat actual meals, so never were those had in the presence of others.  Her quiet companionship was perfect company.

She swallowed a particularly big bite as he tossed another bit in his mouth, nudging him with her elbow.

“Nice to indulge every now and again, isn’t it?” she asks.  He shakes his head exasperatedly, his mouth full, and she laughs.

They finish eating and clean up, and he’s sort of hoping for more of them sitting quietly together, but she rushes into the hut they shared and grabs their lightsabers, instead.

“I didn’t think you were serious about the training,” he deadpans, and she looks up at him, feigning innocence.

“Why else would I insist we stay?”  She leads them to a large cliff side, relatively flat considering the angles the mountain tended to take.  Taking three steps away, she turns to face him, a determination in her eyes he admired.

“Don’t hold back on me,” she says.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he responds, igniting his saber.  It hisses to life loudly, crackling like fire as the blade spits out.

She takes in a deep breath, then ignites her own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my darlings! Welcome to my chapter of fluff!
> 
> I honestly hate that I had to update on Monday - it felt like forever before Friday rolled around and I got to post this one.
> 
> I hope you guys like it! Ben teaching Rey new stuff and being all cute and domestic and shit.
> 
> Questions:  
> "What did Hux find in the archives he unlocked?" You'll find out later - actually that's one of my favorite arcs of this story lol. Writing it was super fun and just chock full of angst.
> 
> If you're feeling it, or if you just kind of want to know what I look like, go ahead and follow me on Tumblr? makeshiftcandy.tumblr.com
> 
> Next chapter we get to see our space nerds fight each other FOR REAL THIS TIME (except it's a spar).
> 
> Someone a couple chapters ago pointed out that combat can sometimes be a little erotic.  
> And just so you all know.
> 
> I wholeheartedly agree.
> 
> ;)


	20. in which there's a third space nerd introduced and she's amazing

“I found him.”  There’s a beat of silence across the comm-link.

"Perfect.  Neutralize the target and bring him aboard the ship.”  The words are harsh over the link, distorted by both the vocoder Jayce Ren is using to talk and the interference between them, using this channel halfway across the planet when it was only designed for a few miles of distance.  She couldn’t pinpoint exactly where he was, using his Force suppression to hide his true location.

Chrinda Ren puts the link away as she slowly approaches the small figure huddled in the corner of the hut.  The child was shaking, trying to get as far away from these strangers as he could, trying to blend into the shadows.  All around them was destruction, fires burning the huts of the small village they’d infiltrated looking for this boy.  It reminded her of the end of her Padawan days.

They knew from their research that the boy was being exploited for his abilities, that he’d been orphaned as an infant, which was one of the stipulations Ben – damn it – _Kylo_ had asserted when giving this mission.

 _“We will not make the same mistakes Skywalker made,”_ he’d said, and it had made perfect sense.  Perhaps if the members of Skywalker’s academy had been orphaned, it would still be around.  But then they never would have met Ben Solo, so they wouldn’t be where they were now.

Chrinda Ren wants to scoff at the mere thought.  She’d accepted her lot years ago, but they all knew she was different.  Not quite as corrupted by the darkness of the rest of the Knights, never falling as hard for Snoke’s manipulation.  No, that night, they’d all come rushing out of their personal huts to find Ben Solo, his lightsaber casting a blue glow against the rubble of his destroyed hut, hands shaking with adrenaline and fear.

 _“What happened?”_ Jayson had asked, running up to Ben, his best friend at the time.  Chrinda remembers the longing she felt, watching them interact, wishing not for the first time that she was part of that group, as well.  Kerran Ren had inserted herself, clinging to Jayson while her eyes roved over Ben at any given opportunity.  Chrinda would never admit her jealousy – but her classes were specialized when Master Skywalker realized her abilities lay within healing rather than combat.

" _L_ _uke…”_ Ben had said, his voice laced with the fear he was displaying.

 _“He killed Master Skywalker!”_   Chrinda doesn’t remember anymore who said it first, but she remembers the immediate agreement.  _“He’s turned to the dark side!  Just like Darth Vader!”_

Chrinda remembers her heart sputtering with those words – they’d found out mere weeks ago the truth of Ben Solo’s lineage, much the same way everyone else had.  A holonet projection of a diplomatic endorsement, in which a Senator Chrinda knew to be skeevy announced to the world the truth of Leia Organa’s heritage.  The adopted daughter of Queen Breha and Bail Organa, blood-relative of the destructor of Alderaan.  Speculations rang out, wondering if she’d staged the whole thing, if she’d been part of the Empire after all, if her Rebellion loyalties were merely a mirage.

Luke had silenced such misplaced accusations against his sister, reminding everyone that Darth Vader returned to the light side at the end, that his soul was purified and saved, that Luke owed his life to the man.  The murmurs quieted, but never truly stopped.

And Ben, finding out the truth of his birthright in a room full of students taught to disregard that which he came from.  The dark side.  Suddenly his abrasive personality was being deliberated, people were whispering amongst each other how his angry outbursts were fueled by darkness and not misunderstanding.  How he brushed aside Master Skywalker’s teachings, preferring to study alone.  How his only friend, Jayson Naberrie, was the only person sticking up for him.

 _"No, I didn’t,”_ Ben had stressed to the other students, still shaking, the rain beginning to fall.  They were all frightened and confused.

_“Darksider!”_

_“Murderer!”_

_“Darth Vader incarnate!”_

Chrinda still wasn’t sure who rushed Ben first.  And Ben hadn’t even stopped to defend himself.  He’d merely stood, staring at the rubble of his hut, where Luke lay buried beneath the stone.  His face and clothes covered in dust from the debris, the trepidation and disbelief on his face illuminated by the blue glow of his saber.

It had been Jayson who attacked the Padawan that came after Ben.  As soon as weapons clashed, it was like the darkness rose around them, smothering the fourteen students, igniting their emotions ten-fold.  Anger was that much stronger; fear that much more pronounced.  It crashed over them in waves, dragging them under with the sheer pressure of darkness emitted from the Force.

They wouldn’t find out until much later that it had been Snoke’s influence.  Snoke, who stood on the outskirts of it all, seeing to the fall of Ben Solo personally.  Pulling the strings from within the Senate; revealing the truth of Leia Organa’s parentage quietly.

He thought himself a new Palpatine.  Clearly, if Kylo could kill him, that hadn’t been the case.  But as soon as that first Padawan fell to Jayson’s pike, an all-out brawl ensued, students tearing each other apart.  Kerran came to defend Ben, who still stood, shell-shocked it seemed, trying to piece together the remnants of his psyche.  Because the last person he trusted had failed him, though at the time, those who later became the Knights of Ren had not known the truth.

It was an errant saber that caught Luke’s temple on fire, the clashing sparks slicing through the wood he’d used to build it and causing flames to lick up the sides of the building.  Whether it was a defender of Ben Solo or Luke Skywalker that enflamed their school, their home, was up to debate.

At the end, those who stood with Ben prevailed.  Ben, who had finally sheathed his saber.  Ben, who stood, hair drenched in the rain, telling them the truth of what happened – how he’d awoken to Skywalker standing over him with a lit saber.  How he’d merely defended himself from his inevitable demise.  How none of this should have ever happened.

But the darkness Snoke created from a distance had already seeped under their skin.  They’d tasted the power, and when Ben finally admitted that that darkness spoke to him, they agreed to go with him because they wanted more.

Chrinda still thinks she’s the only one who realized that Ben Solo never took a life that night.  She noticed, though.  Because she’d killed the girl she loved, who’d run after Ben with her green blade drawn, and Ben didn’t move a muscle.  Chrinda hated him for so long, once she’d realized what she’d done because of him.  It was how the darkness had infected her, that hatred for Ben Solo.  When she’d finally forgiven him, for something that was entirely not his fault, the darkness had ebbed, leaving a hollow feeling in her chest, filled only now by this mission Kylo had given them.

Approaching footsteps jolt the Knight out of her haze of memories.  Kerran Ren flanks, approaching the child with a much more determined stride, and Chrinda grabs her arm.

“Put your weapon away, Kerran Ren,” Chrinda warns.  “You’ve done enough damage.”  The Togruta scoffs but sheathes her scimitar and falls back.  Honestly, it was as though none of these Knights had ever encountered a sentient being that wasn’t trying for their lives.  None of them knew how to react to a small, scared child.

Chrinda closes the distance between herself and the huddled figure, crouching down to be eye-level with the small Arkanian boy.  His white eyes were wide with fear, his entire body convulsing as he tried desperately to make himself unknown.  Chrinda brought her hands around, pressing the buttons that would release the breathing apparatus of her mask before pulling it off.

“Hello,” she said, smiling at the small boy.  “Don’t be afraid.  You’re okay.”  An odd thing to say, perhaps, to the small boy whose entire village had just been destroyed by these masked knights.  But the people had refused to disclose the location of their Force-sensitive orphan, despite the Knights having intel from the capital city that he was here.  They wanted to exploit him, sell him to the highest bidder when he was old enough to display his power.  The thought made Chrinda sick, and though she wasn’t a fan of taking lives unnecessarily, she had no quarrels with decimating this village.

The boy must have fallen at one point during the mayhem, his knee sustaining a scrape.  It was a surface wound, but Chrinda had an idea.  Removing her gloves, she held her hands up to show him that she had nothing to hide.

Slowly, carefully, so as not to startle him, she pulled the Force against her and brought her hand up against the boy’s leg.  Exerting the smallest amount of energy, she stitched the broken flesh back together with the Force.  The boy stopped shaking, staring at Chrinda’s hands with unmuted awe.

“My name is Ilecce,” she said carefully as Kerran approached.  “This is my friend Alotha.  We’re Force-users, just like you.”  Kerran seemed shocked that Chrinda used their given names when introducing themselves to the boy, but she said nothing.  “What’s your name?”

The boy stared, his wide white eyes unblinking, but conveying that mix of fear and awe as he looked between unmasked Chrinda and masked Kerran.  Chrinda elbowed her, and Kerran sighed, pulling her hands up and unhinging the mask.  Hers was a bit more complicated, the black sleeves connected to the mask that hid her lekku a bit harder to remove, but she tugged them down so the boy could see her face.  She gave him a small smile, and after a moment, he returned it.

“I’m Rewan,” the boy said in a small, shaky voice.  Chrinda smiled, bringing her hand up, and Rewan slipped his own into it, shaking hesitantly.

“Rewan, we’re here to take you somewhere so you can learn to use your power,” Chrinda explained, and the boy’s smile faltered.  “We don’t want you to be afraid.  We’re not going to use you, or sell you, like these people wanted to.  The way I healed your knee, we want to teach you to do things like that.”  She thought of Ben – _Kylo_ , damn it – and smiled again.  “We want you to be able to use your power as you see fit.”

“Like a Jedi?” the boy asked, and Kerran snorted.

“I told you this wouldn’t work,” she said.  “We should have just taken him like the others.”  Chrinda ignored her.

“Not quite like a Jedi,” Chrinda explained.  “The principles of the Jedi are a little outdated.  We’re building a class that’s going to explore new ways to use the Force.”  The boy stared at her, uncomprehending, and she smiled patiently.  “We want you to be able to use your power in any way you want.  The Jedi didn’t give people that freedom.”  This he seemed to understand.

He nodded, slowly unraveling himself from the wall.  “I wouldn’t be a slave anymore?”  His words, so innocent, tugged on Chrinda’s heartstrings.  This boy was so young to have gone through so much, having been raised his entire life to believe he had one purpose.  To fulfill the greed of his village by being bred and raised to be someone’s plaything.  A cheap party trick sold off to the highest bidder.  Nothing but a commodity.

“No, Rewan,” Chrinda said.  “You wouldn’t be a slave anymore.”  Not that he would be, anyway.  The people who wanted to use him for his abilities were all dead, but the boy didn’t need to know that.  Chrinda knew he’d come with them of his own accord.

“What’s the hold up!?” Urtey shouted as he barged into the small hut.  Rewan stared at him, that fear plain on his face once more as this huge, hulking, black-clad figure marched toward the small group on the floor.  “Chrinda, Kerran, you’ve removed your masks.”

“Yes,” Kerran said quickly, yanking her mask on to avoid defying their creed even more.  But Chrinda just stared up at Urtey Ren through narrowed eyes.  The boy was closing himself off once more, wrapping his arms around himself in terror.

“Urtey, we were very nearly finished here,” Chrinda said through gritted teeth.

“Ilecce,” the boy said, his voice shaking.  Chrinda looked back at him, offering an apologetic smile.

“You told him your true name?” Urtey asked.  “Chrinda Ren, you forget yourself.”

“Urtey Ren, this is my mission to be executed as I saw fit,” Chrinda said, standing up, though she barely brushed the shoulders of the other Knight in her small stature.  “You are interrupting my proposal.  Stand down.”

“Enough of this,” Urtey said, reaching toward the boy, and Chrinda knocked his hand away.

“Stand down,” she said again, stepping closer to the mass of a man before her.  Neither of them willing to back off, each staring into the other’s eyes disdainfully.  Urtey was stronger, but Chrinda was much faster, and Chrinda would best him in a fight.  After all, she was fighting for something she truly believed in.

Kerran moved over the boy with Chrinda distracted, reaching out and flipping that switch in his mind, the way Kylo did, to put him to sleep.  He slumped against the wall, and Chrinda whipped around, her anger palpable between them.

“He was going to come willingly!  Why do you insist on being insubordinate!  You forget yourselves, both of you; I am your superior!”  She yanked her mask off the floor, turning to both of the Knights as they dismissed her.

“You are far too emotionally invested, Chrinda Ren,” Urtey said, walking back toward the entrance of the hut.  “These children are to be raised as Kylo Ren sees fit.  I can only assume he means them to be weapons.”

“But until Kylo gives us an actual syllabus, these students are under _my_ tutelage,” Chrinda shouted back, taking a slow breath.  Urtey walked out without another word, and Chrinda turned her glare to Kerran, who stared back with her emotionless black mask firmly in place.  Chrinda pulled her own on, then pulled Rewan into her arms, walking out of the hut.

The rest of the village lay in ruins, bodies strewn about, torn down in their refusal to relinquish the boy willingly.  As though the life of this boy was worth more than the lives of those who kept him under lock and key.  They believed him to have the freedom to come and go, but even Rewan knew – he was little more than a slave.  Well taken care of, to avoid them being paid less when they chose to sell him, but a slave nonetheless.  His living conditions were none of their concern after they sold him, and Chrinda knew he’d become nothing more than a circus act later.

She was not happy that the Knights tore this village apart to take the boy.  But she was happy that he would no longer be subject to their scrutiny.  He would join the others, become part of something much greater, something visualized by their Master.  Chrinda Ren believed in Ben – no, _fuck_ – _Kylo’s_ vision, even if she had no idea what that vision might be.

No one else seemed to notice during their meeting on Mustafar, but something within their Master had changed after becoming the Supreme Leader.  And she picked up on the way he spoke of the scavenger that had defeated Snoke, as though he was trying to convince himself above them that he hated her.  That she was a nuisance.  A fly that kept returning, buzzing annoyingly in his ear.  But the way he’d absently touched his scar when he spoke of her, there was a softness there Chrinda recognized.  A softness of Ben Solo, not Kylo Ren.  Ever since, it’d been hard to continue thinking of him as Kylo.

She expected Kerran to pick up on it, as well, with as diligently as she watched their Master during his few meetings, but when Chrinda had brought up the scavenger, Kerran had all but spit at her existence, saying that it was a shame Kylo’s training hadn’t been completed before Snoke’s demise.

Yavin had quietly suggested that perhaps Kerran could train Kylo, with an underlying innuendo, and Kerran nearly attacked him while the others laughed.  Kylo cared very little for any intimate feelings, but Kerran’s attachment to him was as obvious to the other Knights as a rising sun on a clear day.  She’d never openly admitted it, but she hadn’t denied it when they gave her shit, either.

Chrinda made her way through the carnage of the village with the boy cradled delicately in her arms.  A few villagers must have survived – she felt their eyes on her, watching in horror as she left with their ticket to a more fulfilling life, the seething anger that they’d decimated a village looking for their wealth.  The only thing redeemable in this village was the child they were taking with them.

Boarding Jayce’s ship, she laid Rewan carefully on one of the cots in the crew quarters.  After Kylo’s meeting on Mustafar, the Knights decided to stick together to fulfill his mission, but Jayce had them drop him off in the capital city, to send a transmission back to the First Order.

She couldn’t be certain, but she was led to believe by the secrecy of the matter that he wasn’t contacting Kylo Ren.

Chrinda seemed to be the only person concerned that Jayce Ren was keeping secrets.  She’d attempted to comm Kylo, but he’d not answered the transmission from his Upsilon, and Chrinda hadn’t messaged again.  She didn’t want anything intercepted by any of the other Knights or the officers of the First Order.  However, she wasn’t terribly worried.

She knew, whatever Jayce was planning, Ben could handle it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UNEXPECTED UPDATE!
> 
> Hello, while I will go back to the main story line on Tuesday when I update again, I just wanted to post this chapter - we get to see what the KOR are doing, and we get to meet Chrinda Ren.
> 
> She's my favorite character. Like, I know that I wrote her, but I love her. I would happily give Disney the rights to her if it meant seeing my wonderful Mirialan healer on the big screen.
> 
> But then I would ask for $50k because it's Disney and that's pocket change to them. I'm trying to move to California this September, I need all the savings I can get.
> 
> ANYWAY - some of you guessed what Ren was doing when he told his Knights about his idea to build an army, but there are stipulations I will explain later in the story.
> 
> Don't get too excited - this arc isn't actually imperative to the main story line, but there is some insinuation about what's going to happen next if you read between the lines.
> 
> Questions:  
> "Why does the mirror give Ben a non-depressing answer? When Rey asked to see her parents, it showed her alone (depressing); when Ben asks what he'll gain, it shows him as a Gray Jedi (hopeful). Or do you see it that the mirror just tells you what you need to know? Rey needs to stop holding on to the past and Ben needs to see the potential of the future?" So actually, I think the secret of the mirror relies not in the answer to the question asked, but in the beginning stages of their heart. When Rey asked to see her parents, she saw a line of herself leading to the answer of a question she hadn't asked aloud yet - but the mirror knew what she wanted before she asked it. It was showing her that the answer to her question (if you believe the theories that she saw Ben's silhouette in the mirror) was right in front of her; OR that (if you don't think she saw Ben's silhouette) the answer was already within her. Whereas Ben already knew the answer to his question - it was all around him.  
> Also, I wasn't showing Ben as a Gray Jedi - that's just how he interpreted it (for reasons). I was actually showing Ben what he didn't want to see - himself. Just as Rey saw herself.  
> The last thing Kylo Ren wants to be faced with is Ben Solo.
> 
> Leave me comments! Leave me kudos! Ask me questions! I love you guys, each and every one of you; you're the best people in the world, I swear it.
> 
> I'll see you on Tuesday!


	21. in which two space nerds finally do the island tango, wink wink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally earned that "explicit" rating

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, Teardrop by Massive Attack pairs well with this chapter. And also The Drumming Song by Florence + The Machine.

When they’d fought each other on Starkiller, it hadn’t truly been a match.  Rey was untrained, unaware of the power she possessed, and Ben – Kylo Ren at the time – was mortally wounded.  Chewie had shot him with that bowcaster, and Rey remembered wondering why his insides hadn’t spilled out onto the white snow.  Still, she’d been whole, and had been able to beat him just by being uninjured.

Her lightsaber ignited with a smooth hum, the half that had once been Anakin’s blade thrumming to life just a millisecond before Luke’s.  They were that same, incredible purplish color and she had to stop herself from being giddy.  This was her color, this iridescent violet shifting beautifully in her hands.  She wanted to stand there and admire it for a moment, but she caught Ben moving into an offensive position from the corner of her eye, and she was reminded that this was a sparring session.

She dipped as well, choosing something more defensive, watching warily as he twirled his lightsaber around.  Her lightsaber was held with one blade forward, the other back, her hands tight around the hilt.  Then, he put all of his weight into his forward foot and charged.  He attacks carefully, his blade gliding through the air with purpose, and she brings either blade up, matching him blow for blow as he brings his blade down on her over and over again.  He switches tactics, moving to swing up instead.

Rey was barely quick enough to catch his saber with the blade of her own, the two fiery streams crackling and hissing under the pressure.  She rears back, spinning on the ball of her foot and ducking, trying to kick his feet out from beneath him.

He’s already there, parrying back and bringing his lightsaber down, the blade crashing into the ground where she’d been just a second ago.  She bounces up, swooping toward his back, and his lightsaber is there to meet her.  With a grunt, he pushes her off, swinging around and swiping at her midsection.

It’s the most intricate dance.  And it’s not fair, because they can see into each other’s heads, read each other’s movements before they’re even made.  They can’t ignore each other’s instincts, because it’s their own instinct as well.  Every move is matched, ever turn met, every strike thwarted.

She pulls the two hilts of her blades apart, the blades singing through the air as she twists them around.  He brings his own down, and she brings both of hers up to block, the three streams crossing like a star between them, hissing blue and red and purple sparks.  With all her strength, she presses back, then twists around, spinning the hilts in her hands so she’s holding them by the underside and swiping up, trying to bring the blade up underneath.  He reads her move and jumps back, ducking down as her other blade whistles past his head.

Rey swipes both her blades up in one fluid motion, and Ben dives backward, twisting himself mid-air to catch his own hand and flip back around.

With a hiss, she clicks the blades back together, twisting the middle of the hilt like she would do her staff.  She jabs one blade toward him, and he dodges with his own, so she twirls, intending to bring the other blade onto the side of his head.  His lightsaber is there, catching hers.

He’s beautiful like this, she realizes.  So immersed in the battle, his surroundings bleed away, and all he can focus on is her next move, her next parry, her next block.  Like a jungle cat, hunting prey, wild and calculating.  She sees into his mind, and all she can see is herself, whirling and winding through the air, bringing her brilliant lilac blades against his blazing red one.

He thinks that she’s beautiful, too.

She rears back, panting, searching his eyes for a moment.  He takes advantage of her openness, attempting to swing his blade down on her, and she steps up to block, their blades sizzling together, before she’s kissing him.

He pulls back too soon, and she’s afraid she did something wrong, but it’s only to switch off his blade.  Then, just as she extinguishes her own, his hands are cupping her face and his lips are melting against hers, and they both drop their hilts to the ground.  This kiss is different than the others.  It’s deeper, somehow.  More desperate.  His lips are moving against hers with that same insistent urgency from the night before, but his instincts are trying to make them both see something wholly different.

His hands move, one sliding around the back of her head, burying his fingers in her hair as the other rests lightly against her neck.  She puts her hands on his chest, feeling the hardened muscle there, and she wants all at once to just be closer to him.  As close as she can be.

There’s warmth pooling in her core, that primal urge, and she’s running her hands down his chest, her fingers trailing across his sculpted abdomen until she’s pulling his hips against her.  They rest there, content for the moment, as her thumbs snake beneath the fabric and draw loose circles on his bare flesh.

 He breaks away with a gasp, the hand against her neck reaching down to her waist to pull her against him as his mouth trails hot, wet kisses down her jaw and neck.  She bites back an unexpected groan, and her hands dip beneath his shirt completely, nails tracking lightly across his lower back as his lips against her neck draw up these different and incredible sensations.  And she doesn’t care that she’s probably sweaty from their duel, doesn’t care that her hair is a mess, because he pulls back to look at her and she can’t _see_ anything other than him.

She crushes her lips to his again, one hand moving to tangle itself in his hair, and _gods_ it’s even softer than she imagined.  Her teeth close around his bottom lip, perhaps just a little harder than she intended, and her tongue darts out of its own accord to soothe her nips.

His hand fists in her hair as his own tongue moves to meet hers, tasting each other, and this is all new and different, but Rey never wants it to end.  Her hand slides up his back, feeling the buckle of his compression sleeves, and she clicks it open.  He flings the sleeves off automatically, his hands running down her body, and she’s using her own to press against his chest until they’re walking backward, into the soft grass.  He breaks the kiss, the hands that had settled onto her hips sliding lower, until he’s gripping her thighs.  She gasps as he lifts her, and her legs automatically wrap around his waist as he settles into the grass with her in his lap.

Her fingers dive into his hair as she kisses him again, the urgency rising, his hands on her hips.  She presses closer to him, feeling him hardening against her leg.  She rocks her hips experimentally, and he gasps against her mouth, pulling away and tightening his grip on her so she can’t move.  He presses his face against her neck, panting.

“If you do that, I won’t know how to stop,” he says, his voice low and husky with desire.  It’s practically leaping across the bond, insistently pulling them closer together.

“Then don’t stop,” she replies, her voice a seductive plea.  She feels his hesitation as he tries to pull away from what he wants, what they both want, as his hands move defiantly to rest on her thighs.

“Rey, I…”  She can hear his concern, his trepidation, his fear that he’ll go too far, that he’ll crush her, leave her broken, and she shakes her head at the absurdity.  As though he could ever hurt her, even if he tried.

“I want this,” she assures him.  She pulls back enough to look him in the eye, willing him to feel her resolve.  His eyes swim, pupils dilated with want.  “I want you, Ben.”  She trails her fingertips against his cheeks, against the scar, and he melts under her touch.

He’s kissing her again, this time with more purpose, both of them finally understanding what had been unfolding since they kissed the first time.  Both of them craving the intimacy, which is strange and new to them.  She trails her fingertips down his biceps, feeling the hardened muscle there, before she’s tugging at his undertunic.  He pulls back just long enough to yank it off, and she’s running her hands over his bare chest, her hands flat against him as she takes in the heat of his skin.

The hands on her thighs roam up, dragging her shirt up her torso, and she sits back, allowing him to slowly pull it over her head, so much gentler than he did his own.  He tugs at her arm wraps, unwinding them painfully slowly.  She reaches back helpfully to unclasp her breast band, and he tosses it all to the side, his lips finding her neck again.  They trail down, and she rolls her neck as he plants kisses along her collar bone, her sternum, until they find the pale pink bud of her nipple.  She arches her back against him as he wraps his mouth gently around it, tongue sliding over her breast until both nipples are standing at attention.  His hand comes up, covering the neglected one, and she can’t stop the moan that tears from her lips this time as he palms her.

Her skin is on fire, everywhere he’s touching leaving a blazing trail of want, and she rocks her hips against his again, desperate for relief, her fingernails digging lightly into his neck.  His other arm snakes around her waist, pulling her flush against him, and that bulge against her stomach is growing bigger.  Her hand dips down between them, pressing her palm against the strain in his pants, and he pulls away from her breast with a bitten-off moan, his forehead pressed against her chest.  She moves her hips for better access, pulling back so she can feel the entire length of him against her thigh.

He’s groaning against her shoulder, his teeth sinking into her skin as she roughly trails her hand up and down his aching cock.  She presses him down so he’s lying on his back, kissing him, his jaw, his neck, finding that spot that elicited a reaction from him last night and biting it.  The sound of his groan, unhindered now, makes more warmth pool at her apex, and there’s a wetness between her thighs, an ache within her that she knows only he can quell.

She aligns her hips with his, rocking into him, the fabric between them rubbing in a deliciously maddening way.  He bucks against her, and she groans as his hand slides up her thigh, teasing the edge of her trousers before his fingers dip into them.  But they’re too tight, and he can’t find what he’s looking for.  He pulls back, gripping her thighs as he flips them, his weight settling against her, her back suddenly in the grass.  He has his forehead pressed against hers, eyes watching her, as he slides his hand past the fabric clinging to her hips, until his fingertips lightly graze her sex.

She tangles her hands into his hair, pulling him in for a kiss that’s broken off when he dips into the slickness of her folds, his thumb running over the bundle of nerves there that’s aching the most.  She gasps, her toes curling, and his finger slowly circles her entrance, thumb still brushing against her clit, and _stars_ she needs him to stop and needs him to go further, both at the same time, because the teasing is driving her mad.

Then, he pulls back, sliding her pants and her underwear down her hips in one fell swoop, her body suddenly bare to the breeze of the island.  She can’t even feel it, because her skin is burning with his heat, her blood igniting beneath his touch, and he’s sliding his finger up the entire length of her slit, teasing her, and she bucks her hips against his hand, whimpering slightly, desperate for more.

He kisses her, so much passion in that one gesture, as he slides a finger into her.  And she can’t breathe, his mouth on hers, dominating her as he begins pumping his finger in and out of the slickness between her legs.  His tongue outlines her bottom lip as a second finger joins the first, stretching her, hooking inside of her until the rest of the galaxy fades away.  Her arms are shaking, overwhelmed by him, his thumb pressing against her clit as he slides his fingers completely out of her, then sinks back in to the knuckle.  She throws her head back in a moan.

He’s pulling her to reaches she’s never been before, the feel of his hands, his skin against hers, the satisfaction he feels making her come undone mixing with her own pleasure as his ministrations build, reaching a higher and higher tempo.  There’s something coiling deep within her, a wanton desire filling her.  He’s chasing it, letting her feelings guide him to where she needs him the most.

She arches her back, and the coil snaps, an animalistic moan ripping out of her chest as she crescendos, her nails digging into his shoulders.  Stars bloom behind her eyes, and she can feel his smile against her neck as his fingers keep moving, riding out her orgasm.

Her thighs are shaking embarrassingly as she pulls his face to her, kissing him desperately as he settles between her legs.  She slides her hands down, finding the waistband of his pants and tugging at them, trying to yank them down despite the awkward angle.  Because he just took her to heights she’d never dreamed of, and only with his hands.  She was anxious to find out what the rest of him would do.

He pulls back to look at her again, silently asking her once more if this is truly what she wants.

“There’s no going back,” he says huskily.  “After this…”

“Hush,” she says, her voice cracking embarrassingly after her disturbing display of unhindered attraction.  “Just kiss me.”

So he does, and he helps her as she tugs his pants down, slipping them off easily.  Her fingertips trail up his bare hips, feeling the soft skin there and having to stop herself from groaning just at the sensation of him, of his naked body nestled against hers.  She grips his hips, aligning them with hers, reaching down to find the smooth steel of his hardened length.  He gasps as her fingers curl around him, pumping him slightly, curiously, and he stills her hand with his own, shaking his head.

“You’re already too much,” he whispers against her cheek.  “I can’t have you spoiling this.”  With her hand in his, he guides himself to her entrance, slowly circling it with the tip.  She gasps, because it’s so much _bigger_ than his fingers, so much harder.  He slides the length of it against her, and she bucks her hips against him as it trails along that bundle of nerves, the friction making her moan.  He covers himself in her fluid, trying to make this as painless for her as possible.

Then, he presses into her, bit by bit, stretching her and filling her all at once.  She arches into him as he buries his face into her neck, her arms circling his torso, a groan building in his chest as he inches his way into her, trying not to hurt her.  He gets to the barrier within her, the reminder of her inexperience, and she nods immediately, urging him on.

He thrusts once, breaking that, and there’s a short flash of pain as he buries himself completely inside of her.  She digs her nails into his back, biting her lip against a gasp – of pain or pleasure, she’s not sure – and he holds still for a moment, allowing her to get used to the feeling, the girth of him.

Completion runs through both of them, feeling whole for the first time in their lives.  Rey is absolute, full, tears springing into her eyes at how _right_ she feels for the first time, how perfect.

Her body adjusts to accommodate his size, and she wraps her legs around his waist, pulling him to her, silently telling him to move.

He pulls back, almost completely, before thrusting back into her, filling her, and she cries out as he rocks against her.  His lips find hers as he moves into her, his hips bucking, his pelvic bone grinding into the base of them, pulling her apart from the inside out.  And gods if it isn’t the most incredible thing she’s ever felt.  Ben watching her, reading her, filling her, making her ache and moan and whimper, and all she can see is his face, his mouth opened slightly as his breathing labors, his lips parted as they come in for a kiss.  She’s found a new religion in his body, his hands, roaming all over her, until he glides them over her arms, yanking her hands down from his back and holding them against the ground.  Her fingers lace between his and he pumps into her, rhythmically, gently furious, every thrust pushing her further and further toward the edge.

Every move makes her gasp until she’s panting, the skin of their bodies sliding together like a violin, and he’s groaning against her skin, his breath hot against her ear, whispering mixes of prayers and curses under his breath.

His mouth finds her neck, sucking on the sweet skin of her throat, and he lets go of one of her hands.  It finds his hair automatically, fisting against the back of his neck, as he slides his fingertips down her shoulder, her breast, her side, her hip, until he’s hooking his elbow beneath the bend of her knee, pulling her closer, the new angle allowing him to fill her even more, in a way she didn’t think possible.  She cries his name, singing it like a hymn, and his next thrust finds a spot so deep inside her she didn’t even know it existed.  Her moan gets caught in her throat as he drives her into this new nebula, but he _feels_ it, feels what it does to her across the bond, and he pulls back, diving into that spot over and over again until it’s too much, so great she can’t breathe, can’t make a sound.  She’s gripping his hand tightly, her fingers tangled so harshly in his hair, but if it hurts he doesn’t notice or care.  The orgasm grips her, just within reach, and her vision goes black as it envelopes her.

She comes undone all at once, her finish blasting through her like a ship jumping to light speed, and a feral moan rips out of her throat, a guttural sound she’s too lost to feel embarrassed about.  Tears spring into her eyes, and she shuts them tightly.  He’s consumed in her, filling her, groaning her name as she clamps around him, milking him.  And he follows her, threads of him shooting into her as he rides out their mutual orgasm, until he’s gasping against her neck.  His body unhinges, disappearing into the Force, and he’s certain he must have died, nothing on any planet could have ever felt this good, this right; not for him.

He lays his weight against her as she slowly disengages her fingers from his hair, sliding them down against his face and willing him to look at her.  He does, his brown eyes finding hers, widening as they register the tear stains on her cheeks.  He brings his hand up to brush them, and she shakes her head.

“Not painful tears,” she assures him, and he nods, slowly sliding out of her, leaving a trail of their mutual pleasure on her thigh.  The emptiness hits her, and she sighs, suddenly incomplete.

Ben moves up, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her against him.  She lays her head against his chest, realizing that she was wrong before.  They hadn’t torn down the last wall between them last night, when he finally kissed her.

No, the remnants of it had remained until the moment they became one.

The bond thrummed, content with their post-coitus afterglow, and she takes a slow breath.  It was mid-afternoon now, the sun high in the sky, half of their day gone.  As painful as it was to think before, it’s doubly so now, after realizing what they were both striving for, what they both needed from each other.  This was so much further than she’d ever intended for it to go, but kriff if she can’t bring herself to regret it.  Ben Solo was too much, was everything, his heart beating strongly beneath her head, trying to slow down after exerting so much of his energy into her.

She leans up on her elbow, taking a real moment to look at him, no longer feeling any reservations about seeing his nakedness.  He’s long and muscular, his chest and abdomen obstructed by freckles and moles and scars.  She traces the one she gave him on his face, down his neck and chest, then crosses his collarbones to the uneven one she gave him on his shoulder.  She trails lower, over the one in his side where Chewie shot him, then follows his abdomen to one she had no story for on his hip.

“One of my knights,” he answers the question in her head as she traces the angry line, feeling the small pockets in his flesh.  “We all dueled each other, competing for the lead, and one of them managed to get his spear a little closer than intended.”

She sits up higher as her hand moves lower, tracing a long, thin pink one that ran the length of his upper thigh.  He shudders against her touch, his cock twitching despite having filled her just a few minutes ago and sits up as well.

“A machete,” he says simply, and she quirks an eyebrow.  “It barely grazed me, but the blade was so sharp, it left a permanent mark.”  He eyes her body, now, as well.  She was smooth and sun-tanned, the freckles on her face trailing down her shoulders and collarbones, but they ended there, save for the various single ones that dotted her skin.  There was one particularly appealing one on her toned abdomen, just a few inches away from her bellybutton, and his thumb trails over it.

“I know this one,” she says, her fingers gliding over the still-healing wound above his knee, but even her touch is enough to drive him crazy, and he gently grabs her hand, laying it over his heart.

"This one?” he asks, his fingers grazing over the pink pucker of skin that ran from the middle of her ribs to the top of her hip.

“I was scavenging a star destroyer, and I fell,” she says simply.  “One of those mistakes you have to make, so you don’t repeat it.”  The thought makes him bristle with anger, the scar being old enough to blend in with her skin, so she must’ve been quite young when she received it.  She kisses his cheek, calming him, and he sighs.

Her arms are bared to him, now, too, and he realizes that her forearms are littered with scars.  Old burns, mostly, but he traces each and every one of them, including the one he’s aware of, from the Praetorian guard that had managed to sink his staff into her skin.

“The metal was always hot from the sun,” she fills in for him, and he nods, guessing as much, before dipping down and kissing one at the crook of her elbow.  “That’s why I started wearing the wraps.”

They were both scarred, their bodies a map of pain and past.  They had their own constellations across their skin, and Rey could sit there forever, mapping him out, tracing every freckle and mole and scar to make a chart that was all Ben Solo.

There’s a trail of hair that starts beneath his bellybutton and leads straight to the apex of his thighs, and she runs her fingers over it, making him gasp a little.  She smiles, excited by this power she has over him, this ability to arouse him with just a few light touches.

“You’re enjoying this,” he says accusingly, and she smiles wider, her eyes dancing.

“Can you blame me?” she asks, but she pulls her hand away regardless.  He rolls his eyes at her.  They sit for another moment before she realizes that, not wrapped up in their intimacy, it’s cold on this island.  She shivers, reaching back and grabbing her tunic, slipping it over her head.  Ben watches her, a light look of disdain in his eyes, and she laughs.  With a resigned sigh, he pulls on his pants.

They gather their remaining clothes and lightsabers, Rey using one of her arm wraps to clean up the mess he made on her thighs before tugging her pants on.  He’s quiet, and she watches him as they walk back to the village, his thoughts moving too rapidly for her to really hear them.  She wants to ask, but she’s not getting any emotion from him besides light, so she elects to keep her mouth shut.

She’s sore, she realizes as she walks, but it’s not altogether an unpleasant feeling.

“We should probably figure out a game plan for tomorrow,” she says as they enter the hut.  Their clothes from the night before are dry, but Ben sits on the bedroll, still exposed from the waist up.  Rey pulls them from the rope, folding them carefully, setting them in side-by-side piles as she unties the rope and winds it up small enough to fit in her duffel.

“I could just take you to your Resistance planet,” he recommends, and she has to stop herself from laughing.

“Yes, because it wouldn’t be suspicious at all to get dropped off by a First Order ship, when they’re the reason the Resistance is in hiding.”  She stops for a moment, then turns around.  “Unless you plan on staying with me.”

He scowls, then takes a slow breath.  “I’m sure there’s a place between here and your rebellion where we can pilfer you a ship.”

“We can head in the general direction of the Ascendancy, so you don’t have to go out of your way,” she suggests, and he shrugs.

"It makes no real difference.”

“They don’t check your ship statistics, see where you’ve gone?”  Ben raised his eyebrows at her for even thinking such an absurd statement.

“They’d lose their lives if they tried.”  He watches her as she takes in that information.  “I’m not one to trifle with, and they are all well-aware of such.  Where I go is the business of my own.  Even Hux wouldn’t dare read my computers to try and map my course throughout the galaxy.”

She sits beside him on the bedroll, crossing her legs and facing him.  “Will things be chaos for you when you get back?”

“Shouldn’t be,” he says, eyes narrowing as he thinks about it.  “Though my second-in-command is a moron, he’s fairly intelligent in the art of war and conquering.  My seven-day absence shouldn’t be met with any unexpected delays or relegations.”

“Kriff, it’s only been eight days,” she responds, taking a slow breath.  “Feels like a lifetime.”

“What will happen to you?” he asks, and she shrugs.  “Nonchalant, I see.”

“Nothing really stops or starts with my presence,” she says.  “I’m no _Supreme Leader_ after all.”  Her eyes are swimming with teasing, and he smiles, nearly making her lose her breath.  If she had to look at one thing for the rest of her life, she’d want it to be that image.  “I’ve not even left planetside in nearly three months, before this trip that I had to run away to go on.  The bounty your General issued is too dangerous.”  She sounds sarcastic, and he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Even if you didn’t believe it before, how can you not now, after what happened on Tatooine?”

“I believe it,” she retorts, puffing out her chest in mock confidence, before she sighs, her shoulders sagging.  “It’s just so boring.”

“I’m sure,” he says, and she has to chuckle, raking her fingers through her disastrous hair before she gives up.  He stares at her, the mess that she is, tunic cutting dangerously low with her undershirt tossed into a pile, hair hanging in loose knots around her head.  “You look beautiful.”

Rey stops short, her eyes wide on his, because though he’s thought such things, he’s never said them.  She didn’t know it was within his character to compliment anyone.  He certainly didn’t seem like the type, anyway.

He reads her thoughts, lips pursed as he tries to think of a comeback, but nothing comes to light.  So instead, he leans forward and kisses her.

It’s such an innocent act, but she feels that fire burning deep within her regardless, the embers of their last encounter suddenly stoked as his lips meet hers.  She kisses him back, putting more weight behind it, trying to get him to feel her intent.  She cups his face, rising to her knees so he has to crane his neck back.  He pulls back to look at her, something unreadable and immense in his eyes.

Something passes between them in a moment, and then her lips are on his again, lost to Ben Solo once more.  She pushes him back onto the bedroll, climbing on top of him, suddenly glad he’d elected not to put his tunic back on.  It gives her so much more access to his skin, to the pale expanse of his chest, the chiseled muscle of his abdomen.  If she never had to stop touching him, it would be too soon.

His hands are circling around her back, sliding up her tunic, and she sits up on his hips to pull it off.  He takes a moment to assess her, fingertips trailing across her stomach, over that one freckle he likes so much on her navel, up the stairs of her ribs until he’s curving them around her breasts.  She hums, her eyelashes fluttering closed, allowing him to explore her skin.

He sits up to kiss her neck, moving up, finding a spot just below her ear that makes her shudder in delight and focuses his attention there.  Her hands run through his hair before trailing down his neck, onto his shoulders, and she’s pushing him back onto the bed once more, her lips finding his as he tumbles back.

That hardness is growing against her, standing at attention as she devotes herself to him fully.  She kisses down the line of his scar, following it down his neck to his chest, and he growls.  She rears back up, to that spot where his neck and shoulder meet, and gives it her focus.  He hisses as she sucks on it, then gasps as her teeth sink into the soft flesh of him.

He’ll bruise, and that thought excites her, knowing he’ll have a reminder of her cherishing his body right next to the scar she gave when she tried to destroy him.

She presses her hips into his growing erection, and he sucks in a slow breath.

“Take off your pants,” she whispers, and he obliges at once, hooking his fingers into the waistband and yanking them down so fast she’s surprised he doesn’t tear them.

She shimmies out of her own at the same time, until it’s just skin between them.  She sits up on his hips, his hardness pressed against her thigh, and trails her fingers down that stretch of hair on his navel once more, deciding it’s one of her favorite places.  They slide down, down, until they’re trailing up the satin-coated steel of his cock.

He’s watching her, a carnal hunger in his eyes that only serves to make her own desire pool hotly between her legs.  Eyes locked together, she wraps her hand around him and guides him to her entrance.

With one hand on his shoulder, she drops herself, letting him slide completely inside of her all at once, and they both gasp, Ben throwing his head back in ecstasy.  It’s a little painful, but she takes a moment to adjust and decides it’s a pleasant pain.  He reaches up to put his hands on her hips, and she grabs them, locking her hands around his wrists and pressing them into the bedroll.  They sit for a moment, staring at each other, before she starts to move.

Rocking her hips against his slowly, she groans, this new position causing new sensations.  It’s sending electric shockwaves from her core to her toes and fingertips.  Leaning forward slightly, she rocks, her body sliding up and back down every delicious inch of him.  She can’t take her eyes off him, every move she makes eliciting a harsh breath from him, his hands fisting where she has him trapped, desperate to touch her.

Moving down to press a kiss to his lips, her clit slides along his pelvic bone, and she moans, reveling in the feeling.  She moves that way again, and she can feel what she’s doing to him through the bond, how her slow, calculated movements are affecting him, how it feels, how she _sounds_ as she glides against the sweat-glistened expanse of his body.  His pleasure melds with hers through the connection until they’re one single organism, one brain with two bodies.

She starts moving a little faster, a moan building in her chest, and Ben breaks free from the manacles of her hands, bringing her face down to kiss him as his other hand snakes its way between them, his lithe fingers finding the precise place where their bodies meet and—

“Oh stars,” she cries, her voice cracking as he rubs circles around her clit, the electric shockwaves from before now ten times stronger.  She quickens her pace, leaning up so she’s sitting on his lap, his finger still holding strong against her as she drives his cock into her over and over, practically bouncing.

That hungry look in his eye has devolved into lascivious desire, his eyes as dark as she’s ever seen them in carnal need, and she shuts her eyes against the building, coiling strain within her.

“Look at me,” he says, so she does, taking him in in all his incredible glory, mouth slightly opened, panting, eyes boring into hers as she moves over him, grinding her hips into his as his thumb expertly circles her aching core.  He brings his other hand up to cover one of her breasts, his thumb lightly brushing against her nipple, and she practically falls against him, her hands steadying themselves against his shoulders.

He shifts slightly, bending a knee up, and suddenly he’s matching her pace, every time she comes down onto him she’s greeted by his hips, and he’s driving harder into her than she had been, his hand not giving her any reprieve from his attack on her throbbing nub.  She feels herself climbing higher and higher, until she reaches the zenith and she cries his name, everything blurred around the edges except him, still vital and colorful beneath her.

Her eyes pop in the most incredible way as her body spasms around his cock, her nails digging into his chest, and Ben can’t hold on anymore, a low moan in his chest as she falls apart around him.

He gasps his own peak, and she feels the warm tendrils of him as they shoot deep inside her, the grace of his hips moving arrhythmically as he finds his release, riding out her orgasm and his until he softens inside of her.

Her forehead is pressed against his shoulder, and he moves his hand up to cradle her head delicately as she reluctantly slides off him.  His other hand is tracing slow, soft lines up and down her back, and she sighs, falling against him completely.

Ben pulls the blanket around them, fighting off the chill, perhaps making sure she doesn’t get dressed again this time.  Her thought makes him chuckle, and she looks up at him in slight awe.

"So you do laugh,” she gasps, and he raises an eyebrow at her.

“Only at things I find particularly funny,” he says with a shrug, and she kisses his cheek.

“Like my internal musings?” she says, but she’s laughing, too, as she curls up against him.

They lay quiet for some time, until the sun has begun setting on the distant horizon, and neither of them talk about their inevitable departure tomorrow, because Rey can’t face it and she’s not sure if Ben can either.  He’s got his head resting on her shoulder, for once, his broad frame nearly enveloping her completely.

“What did you see?” she asks after a while, pulling him from whatever thought he’d been completely immersed in.

“What are you talking about?”

“In the mirror under the island,” she clarifies, and he shifts a bit.  “You saw something, I could tell through the bond.  I just couldn’t see what.  Apparently, I still can’t get into your mind enough to stop you from doing dumb things.”  She’s hoping he laughs, but he just sighs.

“I saw me,” he responds.  “Just…a different version of me, I guess.”  He swallows against her, and she brushes his hair gently with her fingers, hoping for him to continue.  After a few minutes, he does.  “I was in gray robes.”

She gasps dramatically.  “What a turn of events.  Gray rather than black?”  And he smiles, too, because she’s trying to lighten the tension and he appreciates that.  “I told you, it’s sort of a waste of time.  It’s all cryptic rubbish, doesn’t show you what you truly want to see.”

“No,” he agrees, and they fall quiet again.  Rey is trying desperately not to think about the setting sun and the impending night as it draws near, so she racks her brain, trying to think of something else to talk about, anything else.

“Do you want to hear about him?” she asks, afraid as the words leave her mouth that her explanation won’t do the true story justice.

“Who?” he asks, and she pauses.

“Anakin,” she says quietly, and she feels him still completely against her.  “I watched his life, remember?”  He doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything.  After a few minutes, he slowly sits up, watching her with those depthless eyes, one of the only things she can see in the dimming light.  But they’re swimming with an emotion she’s too scared to look at, so she glances at the ceiling, the wall, the doorway, but her eyes always come back to him as he analyzes her.  Then, after an eternity, he gives her an answer she wasn’t expecting.

“No,” he says slowly, eyes still on her, and she feels her own widen.

“No?”

“No,” he repeats, and he’s searching for something within her eyes, within her mind.  He must find it, because he takes a slow breath.  “The only part of Anakin Skywalker I care about anymore is within the blade you built, Rey.”  She can feel her mouth open with confusion, her lips trying to form a question, but she’s not really even sure what to ask.

“Then what do you care about now, if not that?”  His eyes narrow in confusion, like the answer should be obvious.  And maybe it is, and she’s been trying so hard to ignore it, despite it being right in front of her.

“I care about you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm updating a day early again! Because I've got some stuff going on right after work tomorrow and I just have this feeling that it's going to take an emotional toll on me. So whether what I'm doing is done at six or eight, I'll probably go home and go to bed immediately afterward, and I couldn't leave you guys waiting for the coitus I promised.
> 
> I'm going to answer some of your questions that you might ask yourselves during this chapter.  
> "Has Ben had sex before?" ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> "What on EARTH is Ben's refractory period?" ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> "Wouldn't Rey have been in more pain?" ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ (actually I know the answer to this one because, in case you guys didn't know, I am a girl. It doesn't hurt much to lose your virginity if the woman is sufficiently lubricated. And let's be real, Rey's been hot since Tatooine lmfao)
> 
> If you missed my last update, it was a chapter about the Knights of Ren and it was pretty great. Just my professional opinion.
> 
> ALRIGHT my lovelies, I'll see you again on Friday! Also I have never written smut before SO I hope it's good. And if it's not, let me know what I can do better! But I swear I wrote this chapter like 100 times before I gave up and pronounced it good enough.
> 
> Leave me comments! Leave me kudos! Ask me questions! I adore you all, of course.
> 
> I hope you guys love me as much as I love you.
> 
> Also, last thing, I know this chapter was kind of just ALL sex but y'know, if you've been waiting six months for something you're gonna take advantage of it, right?


	22. in which a space nerd thinks too much AGAIN. why is he so dumb.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, The Scientist cover done by Kina Grannis and Lindsey Stirling goes well with this chapter.

Eventually they rise and dress, eat more of the fish Rey had caught, and all the while she remains relatively quiet.  It’s disheartening, and Ben won’t ever admit it, but he’s afraid he’s overstepped, and that this week-long tryst meant far more to him than it did to her.

Though she apologized, she left him once, and will irrevocably do so again, despite him pretending that it would be okay this time; after all, their impending separation was amicable, both of them understanding that this would be the end result from the beginning.  But he can’t help but wonder.  When tomorrow comes, once they find her a ship to go back to her side of the war, will he once more be met with the cold steel of her closed doors?  Once more be plagued by the headaches, the constant reminder of the rift between them?

Perhaps the attachment to her came too quickly.  Perhaps he let himself get too carried away, thinking their rendezvous held more meaning than it did.  That she truly asked him to Tatooine to be nothing more than a bodyguard, and things just got out of hand from there.

She remains quiet, and he partners her silence, no longer reveling in the companionship of her.  He’s worried that the bond might give him away, might alert her to his internal struggle, but she seems far too lost in her own thoughts to catch on.

He wants to be relieved.  Instead he thinks it’d be easier if she could hear him.

And his own thoughts are such a jumbled mess, he couldn’t get into her head, figure out her thoughts if he tried.  It’s no different than when they were lightyears apart, speaking quietly across a bond neither of them could explain, when she’d called him a monster and he was simply trying to figure out how this happened.

At the time, he couldn’t imagine a Force bond with a worse counterpart.

Funny the turn that line of thinking took.

He helped Rey clean up the mess they made around the village, then stepped out, wanting to take one last look at the temple before they left.  She stayed behind, smiling softly as he departed but giving no indication she wanted to accompany him.  He pretended that didn’t affect him.

The walk was relatively short.  He’d learned the layout of the island pretty well, considering the short amount of time he’d been here.  The birds yelled as they took flight to make way for his feet, and they weren’t quite as annoying as they had been, he realized.  Perhaps they were something one could manage to get used to.

The temple was just as large and imposing as it had been the day before, but it didn’t seem to hold as much of the grandeur as it had.  The chamber echoed with his steps as he walked up the stairwell, into the small room at the top, and then out onto the face she’d used to build her lightsaber.

The metal pieces she’d discarded had been cleaned up, though he had no idea where the caretakers might have taken them.  He stands next to the rock she’d used, watching as the last light of the sun dipped below the horizon, and feeling an emptiness in his chest he didn’t want to feel.  It made him feel like a child, watching his father board the Falcon, not knowing when he’d return.  He remembered how his parents fighting always managed to get worse and worse in the days leading up to a trip – that was how Ben knew Han would be leaving, long before his father ever admitted it out loud.

_I didn’t hate him_ , he’d told Rey, when she called him a monster.  It was true.  Killing Han Solo hadn’t cleared up any of his turmoil, it had only added to it.  Cast him deeper into this well of unknowing, despite Snoke insisting he’d find answers, that destroying his attachments would rid him of the conflict.  Would pull him to the Dark Side, as he had been promised.

_The deed split your spirit down to the bone._

No, Ben Solo had loved his father dearly.  That was why he killed him.

Snoke had told him that, only upon destroying what you loved could you truly become one with the darkness; rid yourself of all you held dear, so you could become who you were meant to be.  The heir apparent to Darth Vader.  The new leader of the Dark Side syndicate.  But after Han died, all Ren felt was guilt and regret; the love hadn’t dissipated in the slightest.  Because his father had believed in him.  Far too late, long after it would have helped, but he’d seen it in his eyes, as he’d caressed his face before falling down into the oscillator of Starkiller.

He’d given everything to the Dark Side, his entire being, until there was nothing but emptiness and aching within his chest.  Until he thought Ben Solo was dead and the light was nearly extinguished completely.  And it still wasn’t enough – he was still just an apprentice, just a useless toy for Snoke’s playtime.  His punishment for the guilt he couldn’t escape had been grisly, Snoke reaching into his mind, pulling him apart bit by bit until he could barely kneel before his master.

And there, at the base of everything, after the Darksider had dug so deep into his mind he’d found the caverns Ren himself hadn’t explored, had been the girl.

Snoke had tried to rip her apart within him, as well.  Cast her out, the dreadful, pitiful scavenger girl she was.  Make him see that she could never care about him, that she’d just leave him, as his mother and father had, as Luke Skywalker had.  Ben had trusted the teachings of his Master, willed her away as much and often as he could, but the girl stayed within his mind.  He couldn’t escape her.  He’d dreamed about her long before she’d been real to him and continued to do so after.

His infuriating beacon of light.  The moon that lit up his night sky.

The attachment he never wanted; the pull to the light he was trying so hard to crush.

And then they’d bridged minds, touched hands across the Force, and he’d seen her – down to her core, to the base of who she was, to the lie she’d told herself that her parents were coming back for her, despite them selling her services to that disgusting junk dealer for twenty-five credits.  He’d seen how desperately she clings to her own fabricated happiness, to all the surface level rubbish everyone around her believed, despite her conflict.  He’d seen her, buried within her own mind.

Her parents were nothing.

She was nothing.

But somehow, through all of that, she managed to become everything to him.

He never imagined in a million years that she’d feel the same way.  Why had he allowed himself to hope as much after their days spent together?

He’d tried to call her out on her faults – telling her that she looked for a parent within every person who showed her an ounce of kindness.  Han Solo, then Luke Skywalker; even in his own mother.  But he refused to face his own attachment issues.

She was the first person who looked at him like he might be worth something.  Something more than a tool, a weapon, an inevitable link to the dark Skywalker past.  And he’d clung to that, reveled in it, until he convinced himself she was going to stay.  Rule with him, stay by his side, show him he was wrong in assuming that everyone he cared about would eventually abandon him.

Then she’d left, and that void had been left unfilled, a tangible vacuum of space so incredible he wasn’t sure there was anything big enough to fill it in the first place.  A canyon within his very soul.  She raised the door on him, locked him out of her life for so long he convinced himself he liked being outside of her.  Her appearances to him had been nothing more than a burden, after all.  She was a hindrance, a nuisance.  It had taken about ten seconds for him to turn around on that again, as soon as she’d come back to him.  One look at her face, one glance of her eyes, and he was weak for her all over again.

He’d run to Tatooine, not because he was curious about what she was doing, but because even the unlikely chance that a bounty hunter would find her was too much for him to bear.  Despite beginning his trip back to the Ascendency, he knew the entire time he’d never make it.  And then, desperate to keep her company with him, he’d offered to bring her to the farthest reaches of the galaxy, so she could build a weapon he figured she’d eventually use to destroy him,

He knew now she couldn’t destroy him.  But that didn’t mean she would stay.

The thought makes pain bloom like springtime flowers in his chest, and he’s desperate to be rid of it.  As he stands next to the perch she’d used to build her lightsaber, as he stands upon the island she couldn’t help but call home.  He wants it gone, wants to pretend none of this had happened.  Wants to go back and expel the Force bond before it can form.

But that’s ridiculous.

It was always there.  Even before they met.

And how could he ever hate her for that?

He wonders if she’d be better off, never having known him.  Because if there’s anything within her that wants to be with him, he’s ruining that just by existing, by being who he is.

Perhaps it means nothing to her at all.

And he’s so lost, he doesn’t even know she’s there until she’s wrapping her arms around him from behind, her face buried in his back, her shoulders shaking with exertion.

“Don’t,” she squeaks, her voice muffled by his clothes.  “Please.”  He doesn’t know how to respond.  Rigid with her sudden appearance, Ben’s trying not to wonder if she’s just here to torture him more.  He almost wants to step away from her.  He almost wants to take her onto their ship and run away, find some corner of the galaxy they can hide in and let this war play out the way it was meant to, if neither of them had ever gotten involved.

“Stay with me,” he finds himself saying instead, the words forming before he thinks them.  Like someone else is talking through him, using his mouth to speak.  He feels her shaking his head against his back, but she doesn’t respond.  His hands are in fists against his thighs as hers cling to him.  And then he’s reaching up, folding his hands over hers, holding her there.  Because he didn’t know he needed this comfort, but she’s there and he has no desire to move.

With her here, he can rationalize a little better, and he realizes how loud her thoughts are.  It’s a repetition of his words from before, finally partially admitting what she means to him, coupled with that distinct desire to take his hand, so long ago in the throne room.  She feels her own turmoil, her want to stay with him, despite knowing that the Resistance needs her.  That her friends are probably worried, that she is better equipped now with a lightsaber.

She thinks of him, his place among the First Order, how she hates that he’s the Supreme Leader, no matter how much she teases him for it.  The people who wanted to kill her friends, her family, the one she’d finally found for herself, even though they didn’t understand her and were afraid of what she was able to do.  How much she wanted to be there for him, with him, even though she could never betray those she held dear, could never be in a position of power.  How much simpler it would all be if he could just be Ben and she could just be Rey.

If they’d met in another lifetime.

Then maybe things wouldn’t be as messed up as they were.

“Don’t think that,” he says quietly, and her turmoil only increases, because she’s bleeding from a wound neither of them can see, and it’s only getting bigger, stretching between them to infect them both.  Their time ending too rapidly, the sun gone beneath the horizon on their last day until gods know when; how much she wants to ask again for just one more day and both knowing they can’t.  Another day could change too much, and they’ve both been hiding for too long, but he understands.  Because what if this is their last day ever?  She’s clinging to his tunic, and he gently unpeels her hands from him.

“Please don’t make me let go,” she says, and his breath catches.

“Let me look at you.”  But she’s shaking her head, her thoughts somehow louder, screaming about how she can’t stand to see that look on his face, the one from her nightmares.  The stoic, emotionless mask that was Kylo Ren and not Ben Solo at all.  He takes a slow breath, and she knows that her fears are ludicrous, but she doesn’t budge.  “Rey, please.”

After a moment, she laments, letting go so he can turn and face her.  Her eyes are swimming with tears, tracks down her cheeks, her face red with embarrassment.  And the despair beneath all of that makes something crumble within him.

“This can’t mean nothing,” she says defiantly, her voice cracking with emotion.

“It doesn’t.”

“Because it’s been too much for it to just mean nothing.”

“Yes,” he agrees.

“Please never think that you mean nothing to me,” she begs, and he takes a breath.

“I’m sorry,” he says softly, pulling her to him so he could comfort her, as she had just comforted him.  She presses her face into his shoulder for a moment.

“I have never…” she begins, and he can feel her shaking, trying desperately to say the words stuck in her throat.  He can feel the weight of them, pressing, wrapping around their embrace, trying to draw them closer.  She takes a slow breath.  Then, he feels her switch courses, afraid to say too much all at once.  “I care about you, too.”  Her voice is barely a whisper, and those unspoken words float around them, trying to get her to speak.

He wants so much to ask what she was going to say, but instead he just nods, knowing that the words will come when the time is right.

She pulls away from him slowly, looking into his eyes, seeing his emotion splayed out before her.  He doesn’t want to hide any of it from her, not anymore.

Reaching up, she cups his cheeks, then pulls him in for a slow kiss.  Behind it is all that pain, that longing, that fear that they’ll never have this opportunity again, and he kisses her back, unable to stop himself from mirroring her emotions.

“What will we do?” she asks after she pulls away.

“Come with me,” he says, knowing it’s futile, knowing that he won’t get the answer he wants.  He’s not even sure if her rejection will hurt anymore.

She hesitates.

“There’s no place for me there,” she says.

“There’s no place for you with the Resistance, either,” he replies.  “You won’t admit it, but you know they’re afraid of you.  What if they turn on you?  I wouldn’t let anyone close enough to hurt you.”

“We both know that’s not what I’m worried about,” she says, and he almost smiles, because it’s true.  She could take down his whole fleet if she wanted to.  She takes a slow breath, watching him, and she can’t stop herself from asking; “Do you even want that anymore?”

He opens his mouth to respond, then closes it, because he isn’t sure, hasn’t been sure since they started this trip.  Ruling the galaxy was never what he had signed up for – he’d gone merely to become Snoke’s apprentice, to be persuaded in the ways of the Dark Side, to get closer to the legacy of Darth Vader and find the power to overcome his childhood fears, his abandonment issues, his internal conflict that was there because of Snoke in the first place.

But he’d killed Snoke, refused information about Vader when Rey offered it to him, and walked away from the galaxy and the power as soon as the opportunity of her had presented itself.

He had no answer, so he presses his forehead to hers in lieu of a response and kisses her again.

“Can you promise me something?” she asks.  And he hesitates, hating that terminology.  He didn’t want to lie to her, even if it was unintentional.  She shakes her head, pulling away from him so she can look at him fully.

He realizes with a start that she’s wearing his cloak, wrapped tightly around her shoulders to stave off the cold, and she looks every bit the Empress he imagined.  The one he thought he saw in their shared vision through the Force bond.

“Promise me this isn’t the last time we’ll see each other,” she says, and he feels his agreement trying to will its way out of his throat.  She continues, “Promise me that tomorrow, when I get off that ship, and you fly away, it won’t be the last time I get to look at you.”

“Rey, I—”

“Promise me,” she insists, and tears are welling up in her eyes.  He takes a slow breath.

“I promise,” he relents, and he feels the truth of it from the Force.  This was a promise he was meant to make, that he had no choice in making.

She’s kissing him again, her hands fisted in his tunic, on her toes, pulling him closer.  He wraps his arms around her, pulling her up, and he doesn’t want it to end; this closeness that he’s never had the chance to feel with anyone else.  That he never truly wanted to feel before her.

After a while, she pulls away, just as the first droplets of rain start to fall from the sky.  He hadn’t even noticed the clouds as they congregated in the sky.  She takes his hand, pulls him into the temple and down the stairs.

They stop as the torrents begin falling, just inside the temple, and he can tell that she can’t even bring herself to enjoy it like she had before.  There’s too much brewing around and between them for the storm to bring her comfort.

The walk to the village is slow, neither of them paying too much attention to the rain.  He lights a fire as soon as they’re back in their hut, and she sits on the cot, her elbows on her knees, staring into the dancing orange and red flames as they grow in the pit.

“What if we left?” she asks, not able to meet his eyes, and he takes a slow breath, fisting his hands at his sides before he moves to kneel in front of her.  And he expected it to feel strange, because he hasn’t knelt before anyone since Snoke was killed; had vowed to himself that he’d never take another knee before any living creature.

Yet here he was.

And it didn’t faze him in the slightest.

“We can’t,” he says.

“You don’t even want to rule anymore,” she retorts.

“Maybe,” he admits, never taking his eyes off her, despite the fact that she refuses to look at him.  “But you’d never abandon them.”

That cuts her down to her marrow.  Because those people, those traitors and murderers and scoundrels she called friends, were the most important thing to her.  He watches her carefully as she thinks about it – if it hadn’t been for the pilot’s droid and the traitor Stormtrooper, Rey never would have left Jakku.  She would have lived out her days, waiting for a family who would never return to her, scavenging old Imperial starships and counting the days on the wall of her AT-AT unit.  If it hadn’t been Skywalker, she never would have been able to become the hope the Resistance needed, and if it hadn’t been for the General, Rey never would have known what it was like to have a family.

This was the family she chose for herself.

Her thoughts go to her small bunker-like bedroom on the Resistance base, though she doesn’t seem to care if he can tell where they’re hiding anymore.  It doesn’t feel like a home to her.  The Resistance was her family, but she was still the black sheep, still on the outside looking in.

Still, she loved them dearly.  And Ben knew she wasn’t ready to let them go yet.

Finally, she looks at him, taking a deep breath, her eyes rimmed with a sadness so deep it opens a wound in his chest.

“Promise me something,” he says, and her eyes widen just a bit, given his reluctance to make a promise himself.

“What?”

“Promise me you won’t dwell on this while I’m away,” he says.  “You can’t go back and have them know something’s changed.”

“But everything’s changed,” she argues.  “Ben, you’ve changed.  They should know that.  Your mother should know that.”  He cringes but shakes his head.

“No, you’d be disregarded immediately if they found out you’ve been gallivanting through the galaxy with the leader of their sworn enemy.”  She chuckles at the sheer absurdity, rubbing her temples, and he pulls her hands into his.  “Promise me.”

“I promise,” she says, and it’s barely a whisper.  He nods, standing, and she pulls him onto the bed, kissing him desperately.

They lose themselves to each other until long after they fire has died.

... 

The sun is a treacherous thing.  No matter how much you want it to stay away, it will inevitably begin its rise across the skyline.  The fingers of first light will eventually begin filtering through the windows of the stone hut, the black turning to gray slowly.  The night will come to a decided end, and the morning will dawn, just as it always had.

Ben doesn’t sleep.  He stays up, with Rey wrapped around him, her face on his chest, her hair fanned out across his shoulder and neck.  She’s breathing deeply, and he sees small purple bruises on her shoulder starting to form where he got a little too carried away with his teeth.  But he can feel the one she left him, as well, just next to the scar she gave him.

He’s not willing to wake her and end this moment between them, so he stares at the ceiling, his fingers drawing small circles on her back.  Her dreams are slow, soft renditions of their time spent together, of her friends on her resistance base, of the fucking birds he can’t get away from, even in her mind.

Most of them circle around him, which is oddly comforting, as he picks quietly through her brain.  She’s content now, her mind a peaceful place of light, and he’s right at the center of it.  A dark cloud on a sunny day.  But she doesn’t see him that way.  Within her dreams, he’s this great, incredible being who crossed the galaxy to be with her, who saved her life at the hands of his master, who transported her to the farthest reaches, just so she could build a weapon to take on his army.

He wishes he could be the white knight from her mind.

She was too beautiful for him, and he’s massively appreciative that she refuses to see that.

Her brain muddles as her body shifts, and he knows she’s on the edge of consciousness.  He takes a slow breath, feels her eyelashes flutter against his chest.

She sits up and looks at him, her eyes still half-closed, her hair a complete mess, and he takes her in completely, burning the image to his mind.  How could any living creature be so inexplicably beautiful?

“Did you sleep?” she asks, and he sits up as well.

“I rested,” he responds, and she eyes him uneasily as she stretches.  “The Ascendancy is about a day from here.  There’s plenty of inhabited systems between here and there, any one of them will have you a ship.”

“Nothing First Order issued,” she insists.  He shrugs, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with her request.  She purses her lips, picking up on his non-commitment, as she reaches down to grab her pants from the floor.  She tosses his, as well, but he’s too entranced by watching her dress to really do much with them for a moment.

“There’s still plenty of fish for the road,” she says, handing him a plate as he reluctantly slides into his own clothes.  She’s tossing her things back into her duffel, and he helps her gather her supplies, whatever they’d brought with them.

“What’s this?” she asks, holding the small round compass he’d taken from Skywalker’s hut.  She’d picked it up off the ground – it must have fallen out of his pocket in the midst of their fervor the night before.

“I’m not sure yet,” he says with a shrug, opening it for her so she can inspect the compass dial and the blue gemstone within.  She holds it carefully, as though it might break, her eyes wide.

“It’s beautiful,” she says softly.  “Did you get this from Luke’s hut?  I think I recognize it.”

“It’s not like he’s using it anymore,” Ben says, a little defensively, and she laughs, handing it back to him.

“I wasn’t going to scold you, Supreme Leader,” she says, that teasing amusement back in her eyes, and he smiles at her.  She stares at him for a moment.  “You should do that more often.  A smile suits you.  Makes it easier to convince people you’re human.”

“You’re still not convinced?” he asks, approaching her slowly.  “After last night?”  There’s heat in her cheeks, and she looks away, cinching her duffel together.

“Regardless, I’m not the one who needs convinced,” she says, shouldering her duffel dramatically.  She’s a disheveled mess, he notes, as she untwists her lightsaber hilts and clips them to either side of her belt, but she looks magnificent that way.

They walk back down the island together, making careful steps, trying not to slip on the ancient ruins of stairs, slick with the previous night’s storm.  The Upsilon is waiting patiently for them, dramatically black against the otherwise light gray and green tones of the island, and Ben realizes for the first time that it doesn’t exactly fit in with the décor.  Rey snorts at his thought, and he playfully insists that she stay out of his head, to which she replies, “I would if I could, Solo.  Trust me.”

After two days spent in a foreign place, the Upsilon feels too familiar as they board.  Nothing has changed within the interior, and Rey takes her place in the co-pilot seat, starting her careful list of duties as Ben sits beside her.  The ‘fresher is just where they left it, the private quarters are still the slight disorder they were when they’d last slept there, the drawer with the water and caf and nutrition bars is still just to the right.

 No, all of the change had happened within him.

After a few minutes, the ship is ready, and they take off, lifting quickly out of atmo and shooting into the galaxy.

Ben leaves part of himself on that island with her.  He takes in a sharp breath, and it stings in his chest, tightening his hand over the steering column.  He’s not prepared for the separation of her, never was, and leaving that island was one of the final nails in the coffin.

“Why do I get the feeling we’ll never go back there?” Rey asks, looking back over her shoulder as though she can see the planet through the thick steel of the ship.

He looks at her as she looks behind them, and he has no response.  So he leans over her, flipping the switch into hyperspace, too afraid to second her thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my loves!
> 
> And here we see Ben being an angsty piece of shit and getting lost in his own brain, as he's so fond of doing.
> 
> I love my little idiots, though. They're growing up and becoming little emo children.
> 
> Leave me comments! Ask me questions! Leave me kudos! Next chapter is more angst, so buckle up, babes.
> 
> I'll see you on Tuesday!


	23. in which these two space nerds spend some time in space.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, I Run To You by Missio goes well with this chapter.

Ben sets course for Akiva, the nearest planet he’s sure will have a ship she can take.  It’s some eight hours away, so he eats a nutrition bar, letting Rey use the ‘fresher first.  He’d never been to the system Akiva occupied, but it had been under New Republic jurisdiction before the First Order stepped in, and he couldn’t recall any sort of opposition happening there with the Order’s takeover.

As she bathes, he flips through the datapad, noting that there was no real news.  Hux had comm’d him about forty times, leaving various messages that ranged from unrefined to downright deplorable.  With Rey preoccupied, he sighs, punching in the radio transmission for the Ascendancy with a filtration code.

“Intel,” the voice on the other end of the transmitter barked.

“Hux,” Ren requested, and there was a brief pause.

“Ah, yes sir,” the Officer said, and Ren was met with the familiar dial that let him know he was being transferred.  Which meant Hux wasn’t on the bridge, or in the hangar; the two places he belonged.  Ben had to stop himself from rolling his eyes as he figured where the cur was within the ship.

“General Hux,” his annoying voice said through the comm, sounding way too pleased with himself, despite Ren’s seven-day absence.  He’d not expected chaos to ensue while he was gone, but he’d not expected Hux to try and usurp him so quickly, either.

“General,” Ren said sweetly.

“S-Supreme Leader,” Hux said in greeting, but Ren caught the delectable way his voice shook.

“Am I to assume my being transferred from the bridge to your location is something to worry about?”  He felt the tension slipping through the other end of the comm, and he had to stop himself from laughing.

“No, Sir—”

“Good,” Ren cuts him off, pinching the bridge of his nose.  “I’d rather you not try my throne on for size, with my absence being as brief as it has been.”

“You’ve been away nearly nine days, Ren,” Hux hissed, and Ren could only assume he was alone; he’d never speak in such a manner around any subordinates. He was tempted to reach across the galaxy, find the source of Hux’s droll voice and squeeze the life out of him, but he took a deep breath and refrained.

Wait, he’d said nine days?  Ben thought for a moment, then sighed.  Mustafar.  He’d actually forgotten about how this all began; the headache on Mustafar.

"I take it, with such an extended absence, you’ve found at least some amount of information on the murderess?”  Ren took a slow breath, willing himself calm.

“I chased a lead from Tatooine and spent some time looking in Wild Space.”  It wasn’t exactly a lie, was it?  Besides, the only person who deserved his devout honesty was in the ‘fresher room behind him, cleaning their excursion from her skin.  “Nothing came to light.”

“You mean to tell me you’ve spent the last four days of your dead silence _investigating_?”

“Do I detect a note of insolence in your tone, General?” Ren sneered, and he could hear Hux griping for words even through the comm.  “Whatever business I attended to is none of your concern.”

"Ren—”  Tally mark.

“I’ll be back on ship within the day,” Ren said quickly, ending the comm call as Rey finished up in the ‘fresher.  If Hux had any plans to kill him before, that number would be doubled before he got back to the station.  Not that he ever could – Ren could fight his way through the entirety of Hux’s guard if he needed to.  The insubordination was getting out of hand, and Ren knew he’d have to make an example of Hux sooner rather than later, lest the rest of the Order begin falling in line behind the red-headed beast instead of Ren himself.

Rey walked out then, her clothes clean and pressed from the washer, her hair no longer the wild disarray it had been.  She’d left it all down, allowing it to brush down her collarbones, where it curled just slightly at the ends.  She’d even put her arm wraps back on, covering the scars Ben had grown accustomed to seeing in the short time they’d been visible.

"Your turn,” she said easily, and if she’d been listening in on his conversation she gave no indication of her eavesdropping.  Ben nodded, grabbing the pile of discarded clothes at his feet – the shirtsleeves he hadn’t bothered to put back on, his undertunic, various other items.

The ‘fresher felt incredible after two days outside, though he was a little reluctant to wash her off him.  The scent of her lingered on his skin, and it almost felt like a desecration to expel the evidence of them.

As he stepped out, looking at himself in the mirror, he realized no physical changes had happened.  Besides the bruise in the shape of her mouth on his neck, he was relatively normal-looking.  The same dark eyes, same scar, same pale skin – darkened slightly after spending those days in the desert.  His hair was the same unruly mess it always was, and he shook it out, pushing it back with his hands and taking a slow breath.

The sonic wash beeped its finish, and Ben fished out his clothes, dressing slowly.  They had another seven or so hours together.  And then what?  Stolen moments across the bond?  Various two- or three-day rendezvous in the farthest reaches of the galaxy as they continued pretending to hate each other, hate the respective cause they supported?

How could he rightfully offer her that life, knowing she was worth so much more than that?  It didn’t seem fair, but he was far too selfish to give the alternative.  To let her go.

Not that she’d allow him to do such, anyway.

No, he’d have to figure something else out.

“Ben, do you want caf?” her voice calls through the door, and opts to step out of the ‘fresher, despite not having yet put on his tunic.  She takes him in for a moment, then raises an eyebrow.

“Sure,” he says, clasping his shirtsleeves together before he pulls on his undertunic.

“We’re going to Akiva?” she asks, pulling out the burner to start heating water, then pouring two packets of caf into the empty mugs.

“It’s the nearest inhabited planet,” he explains as he works his way into his tunic.  “They should have a ship.  It was under New Republic jurisdiction, which means the First Order has territorial claim now.”

“I don’t want anything First Order issued,” she says again, and he shakes his head.

“I never said you’d get a First Order ship,” he responds, then says, “but I also never said I wouldn’t,” as she opens her mouth to retort.

“Ben, come on,” she whines, but they both know it’s a lost cause.  There’s no telling what they’ll be able to salvage, given the circumstances.  She takes a slow breath.  The water’s heated, so she distracts herself by pouring into the mugs and stirring slowly.

“Thank you,” he says as she hands him a mug, and she leans against the wall, slowly sliding down until she’s sitting on the floor.  He watches her as she drinks for a few minutes, then gives up, sitting opposite of the cock pit from her, on the floor as well.

Strange how he talked to Hux as the Supreme Leader less than an hour ago, and now he was sitting on the floor like a kid, drinking a mug of caf with a woman he’d literally dreamt about.

She doesn’t seem inclined to talk, so he lets the silence fill in the space between them, content as he sips his caf and contemplates their next course of action.  He’d not intended on asking her where the Resistance base was, but he was tempted now, if only for his own peace of mind.  She’d practically be in the unknown reaches, and he wasn’t sure he had the mental fortitude to not be able to hop in a ship and fly to her in the event that she needed him.  But he also wasn’t sure she’d give up any information so easily.  Despite the fact that her Resistance more than likely had a reconnaissance team with information about the Ascendency’s location within the galaxy – truthfully, they weren’t trying to hide, so it wouldn’t be terribly difficult to find them.

It would weigh on him if she was aware of his location, but not he hers.  If something went wrong or she was in danger, he didn’t know what he would do, especially if he couldn’t open the bond to get to her or ask her for information.  He wondered if him knowing or not knowing mattered to her anymore.  She’d envisioned a small bunker-like chamber in her mind, but that hardly gave him the necessary information.

He also wanted to have some type of plan in the event that things suddenly spiraled out of his control and he needed to get to her and get them off the grid in as little time as possible.  But she would never tell him if she knew he was playing with that idea in his mind.  Rey of Jakku was resilient and strong and brave; she’d never stand up and leave her friends without a fight.  Especially if she had to fight the First Order.  She’d stay until she was either dead or satisfied that those she cared about would make it out alive.

Ben didn’t think such a scenario would happen – it’d been so little time, truly, since Crait and General Organa’s unanswered distress signal, there was no way they had their numbers up high enough to make anything a fair fight.  That’s why Ben had no real use for Hux’s obsession with finding them.  It was a waste of time; they’d never rebuild fast enough to take down the Order before they got control of everything.

The thought leaves a bad taste in his mouth, and he tries to swallow around it.

“You’re being awfully brooding over there,” Rey says after a moment, and Ben looks at her with an eyebrow raised.  “You’re just being significantly quieter than normal.  Usually at this point you’d have broken the silence.”

“Would you like to talk?” he asks, and she chuckles.

“To you?  Never.”

“Fair enough,” he shrugs, and she laughs, standing up and grabbing their empty caf mugs.

“A lot on your mind?” she asks, reassuming her spot across from him on the floor.

“Politics,” he answers.  She nods, stretching her legs out, looking around the cabin.

“In a strange sort of way, I think I might miss this ship,” she says, and he eyes her quizzically, but doesn’t comment.  “The black interior isn’t my favorite, but the rest of is nice.”  Ben swallows his comment about her staying with him.

Instead, he just nods.

“Tell me something,” Rey says after a stretch of silence.  Ben looks at her, pulled from an absence of thoughts, his mind full and empty all at once.  “You had a vision, when we touched hands across the bond.  What did you see?”

Ben exhales slowly, watching her carefully for a few moments.  She always asked the most difficult questions; had no quarrels with getting in-depth, understanding him.

“Tell me what you saw first,” he replies, and she shakes her head.

“I told you before.”  Her eyes are swimming with the memory.  “Your future.  Merely the shape of it, but it was solid and clear.  I saw you with your back against the horizon as the sun of a new era was dawning.”  He’s trying to see her memories, as well, but there’s too much emotion swirling within her, dense like fog.  It conceals her vision in a strange Force, and Ben can’t, for the first time, get close enough to her mind to see it.  She doesn’t notice, her eyes closed, lost in the tranquility of her own memory.  “And…I was there.  Beside you.  And I felt as though I belonged there.”

“You do,” he responds, and she smiles, her eyes still closed.

“What did you see?”

“It wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen before,” he admits, leaning his head back.  “When I stole away into your mind on Starkiller, I got some of your memories, similar to how you got…mine.”  She smirks at that, and he shakes his head.  “But it was more, I guess.  An in-depth look at you.  That was how I knew that you were lying to yourself, about your parents.  I just got clearer images of those memories.”  He expects her to recoil, to lash out at the reminder of her parentage, but she opens her eyes to look at him, and she appears to be calculating something.  Her eyebrows knit together in a pose he knows now to be her thinking face.

“That’s funny,” she says after a moment, and he looks at her, an eyebrow raised.  “Just that you were so convinced I’d turn, based on my memories.”

“Why is that funny?” he asks, genuinely curious – no longer seething every time it’s brought up that she left him.  No longer feeling that anger at all.

“Well,” she says, crossing her legs in a lotus position, resting her elbows on her thighs.  “You, Ben ‘Let-The-Past-Die’ Solo,” she says with air quotes, “based your opinion on what I’d do…because you saw my past.  Not my future.”

He stares at her for a long moment, and she stares right back, a light smile on her face, allowing her into his mind as he contemplates this.  Because it wasn’t necessarily what he meant, when he’d told her to let go of who she was so she could become who she was meant to be.  But they were so similar in so many ways, and it was his parents that divided his soul.  He’d assumed her truth of her own life would do the same.

Wrongfully, he realized.  She was never meant to see that torment.  Rey was his opposite in that way – she was able to let things roll over her instead of consuming her.  Her soul was frayed around the edges, but she was whole.

Ben Solo was not.

But slowly, painstakingly, the fragments of him were being stitched back together.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ben had distanced himself from her after their conversation, which came as no real surprise.  He was sifting through the datapad, mentioning here and their various snippets of a plan that might form something once they got to Akiva – the truth of it was relatively cut and dry.  They’d land about mid-afternoon, find the most suitable thing for her two-day journey back to the Resistance base, and separate.

Rey didn’t think about that part, but she had been hoping he would talk a bit more.  Once again, her endless questions and ridiculous musings left him quiet and brooding, his thoughts too tumultuous for Rey to really see them.

She opted to meditate instead, just to pass the time.  Since Ben seemed lost in his own thought, and she didn’t want to intrude on his self-discovery.

It wasn’t long before he joined her, out in that expanse of Force that traveled at lightspeed around them.  She hadn’t really reached out for him like this, hadn’t felt his signature so closely until he joined her in the web.  All at once, they were immersed together.

When she’d first peered into his mind, aboard Starkiller, she saw a multitude of things she didn’t want to see.  She saw his conflict, his anger, his rage.  She saw his fear, the fear instilled into him by his decrepit master, that he’d never be Darth Vader, a man Rey knew more about now than Ben did.  She saw his pain, his dreadful loneliness, so similar to her own she thought she was seeing her through his mind.  But that wasn’t the case.  Ben was conflicted and lonely all on his own, finding no real reason to mirror her emotions at the time.  His soul had looked like a black rope, a constant tug-of-war waging within him, the pull to the light as he tried desperately to cling to the darkness, dragging himself back into it by tooth and nail.

After that, he appeared to be more like a black flame.  Just before they’d defeated Snoke, when his resolve had finally been set and he looked at her with that steely determination in his eyes, it had sparked, using the rope as a wick.  It burned strong and bright, but still managed to swallow most of the light, like looking into the eye of a storm – calm, but the rain was just on the edge, ready to rear in at any moment.  It danced awkwardly, in a way that swallowed all of the light, but gave off its own powerful light as well.  A conundrum in and of itself, a being that made no sense at all and yet made all the sense in the world.  And there, directly at the center, was a small pinprick of white.

Now, though, with him so close, she realized there was more to him than that.  His soul, the broken, shattered bits of it he had left, had begun healing.  Where before, they’d been like broken glass, jagged and sharp, ready to cut, now they were like puzzle pieces.  Working their way back together despite knowing they’d never really be whole, that there might always be pieces missing.  And the flame was now an obstructed thing, the black and white dancing in harmony together in equal parts.  And the parts of the flame that met, the parts in the middle, bled together to create an even gray.

Rey pulled herself out of meditation all at once, gasping back into her own body.  Ben sat across from her, eyes closed, hands clasped together in his lap, face peaceful as he swam through the Force.  He wasn’t so conflicted anymore, she realized with a start, and tears formed in her eyes of their own accord.  She had no idea what brought it on – whether it be his own doing, or if the change was happening so gradually he didn’t even notice, but he was so much more balanced now.

She watched him, and every moment that passed she realized that this was his reality.  He wasn’t fighting the light anymore.  He was balancing the two, becoming more.  Letting go of who he was to become who he was meant to be.

Slowly, Ben pulled himself from his mind, opening his eyes to look at her.  His eyebrows raised when he noted the tears on her cheeks, but she didn’t give him time to process before she was wrapping her arms around him.

“Are you alright?” he asks as she held him close, her arms around his neck.  After a moment, he wrapped his arms around her torso.  She didn’t respond, afraid of the crack in her voice – afraid that saying anything might give away what she saw in his mind.  So she just nodded.

After a moment, she pulled away, and he was looking at her with a bewildered expression as she stood up to check the time.  Absolutely uncertain as to what she’d just come to realize, just by seeing his Force.

“We have another four hours,” she said, and thank the stars her voice didn’t give way to her emotion.  It felt too big, almost; like she was buried in whatever it was she was feeling.  Something foreign and great and more vast than she could possibly imagine.

“Okay,” he said after a moment, when he realized she had no desire to talk about whatever it was she just went through.  She sat back down, next to him now, her shoulder leaned against his.  She felt him stiffen, his emotions projecting, and she realized he was afraid he’d done something wrong to bring about her tears.

So, she sat up and kissed him.

He melted into her all at once, and his relief was palpable.  She let her emotions thrum across the bond in equal measures.  Her realization, though, she carefully tucked away, pushing it into the back of her mind for later examination.  He kissed her back slowly, one hand caressing her face.

She pulled back first, looking into his eyes, darker now in the muted lights of the Upsilon.  Not the light, carefree amber of the island or of Tatooine, but they were beautiful all the same.  They were no longer that glacial emotionless mask she’d been afraid of.

These were the eyes of Ben Solo.  And Rey knew, no matter how hard she looked, she wouldn’t see Kylo Ren in there anywhere.

With a soft sigh, she pulled herself against him, resting her head against his chest, and Ben automatically wrapped his arms around her.

“You seem a thousand places right now,” he says softly, and she shakes her head.

“I’m here,” she responds, looking up at him.  “I’m just right here.”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ben kisses her again.  Pressed up against his chest that way, her eyes so wide and innocent, he can’t help himself.  No matter what just happened within her mind, she felt it necessary to assure him that she was present, and he was vastly appreciative of that.  Despite everything, he had that small fear in his mind that he wouldn’t be anything important to her after he was out of her field of vision, and such a thought hurt him in a way he’d never admit.

He needed to be here, too.

When he’d been meditating, he’d felt Rey’s signature.  It was blaringly bright against the backdrop of his surroundings, a beautiful white light.  If he looked closely enough, though, he could see where the white was marred by wisps of swirling gray.  If he didn’t know any better, he would compare her to a star; the light was bright and beautiful, but it was hot enough to produce smoke.  That was where her conflict was, within the smoke, and he noticed that there was less of it than he’d seen within her when he had meditated next to her on Ahch-To.

She was resolved about something, and he could only hope it was about him.

So he kisses her softly, languidly, dragging out the moment in an attempt to forget that she was leaving him in just a few short hours.  Fading into the recesses of the galaxy, farther away than he could reach, than he could run to.  On Tatooine, on the island, she’d been within breathing distance most of the time.

After spending a week in her arms, it was debilitating not knowing how long he’d have to spend away.

And she kisses him back, whatever revelation or fear she had before melting away.  Her mind melded with his, becoming a melting pot of their emotions as they bled together; contentedness, trepidation, fear, eagerness.

He took initiative this time, leaning into the kiss, putting his intent behind it.  She was receptive, leaning up, fisting her hands in his tunic as she pulled him closer.  She gasped against his lips, and Ben fell into her.  He wrapped his hands around her abdomen, pulling her flush against him.  She clamored into his lap, trying to get a better vantage point, so he clamped down on her thighs and stood up abruptly.

She pulled away, startled, but he was kissing her again all at once, pressing her back into the side panel of the cockpit.  She wrapped her legs around his waist as his hands circled around, cupping her bottom to hold her fast against his body.  Her hands found his hair, running through the soft locks as one hand fisted against the back of his neck.  She had to know what that did to him, and he kissed her more roughly, his lips moving harshly against hers.  After a moment, she picked up on his pattern and matched him, moving together, her hips pressed against his.

She pulled away from his lips after a moment, panting out the word, “Bed.”  Ben immediately understood, and he resumed their kiss as he made his way into the private chamber.  He walked until his knees bumped the frame of the cot, and then they fell, him supporting as much of his weight as he could on his arms so as not to crush her.  Their lips never once separated, and as soon as her back was against the duvet, she was pulling on his tunic, unfastening the clasps and pulling it over his head.

His undertunic followed almost immediately as he worked her out of her belt, dropping it and the two lightsaber hilts to the ground with a dull _thunk_.  She pulled her own tabard off, and Ben opened her tunic slowly, taking a moment to look at her, her shirt half-off, falling down her shoulders.

_Beautiful._

Rey didn’t let him dwell for long.

She helped him pull off her tunic and undertunic in one go, and he unclasped her breast band, flinging it to the ground.  Both of them naked from the waist up, save for their various sleeves and arm bands.  Rey sat up and kissed Ben’s neck, his chest, running her fingertips over his lower abdomen.  He hissed as he grabbed her shoulders, pressing her back into the bed.  He bent over her, pulling on the string of her pants, and they came loose.

Leaning down, Ben kissed along her chest. She arched into his mouth as his tongue swept over her nipple, pulling her hips up so he could slide her pants down her knees.  He unlaced her boots slowly, watching her pant as he slipped them off her calves.  She was struggling, desperate to touch him again, and he reveled in taking his time.

Finally, her boots fell, her pants just after them, and Rey slipped her underwear down before Ben could stop her.  She was bared to him, completely, her body and her mind open.  He slid his fingertips up her ankles, to her calves, sliding down the backs of her knees and up the sides of her thighs.  She bit her lip against a moan as he traced slowly over her sex, but he didn’t stop.  Slipping up past her hips, the cool toned lines of her stomach, the breaks of her ribs, her breasts.  All the way up to her neck, where he finally bent down to kiss her.

Her hands were traveling down his back, over his sides and to the waistband of his pants, where she tugged them down the smallest amount.  Just enough to let him know what she wanted.  He continued kissing her, ignoring her request, one hand against her neck.  She tugged again, a little more insistently, and he pulled back with a smirk on his face.

“Anxious,” he commented, and she pursed her lips.

“Yes, well, I—” she broke off with a moan as he slipped his fingers into her, his thumb slowly circling the anxious bud at the top of her slit.

“You what?” he asked, bending close to her ear, finding that spot beneath it that drove her crazy.  She shook her head, biting back another groan as he sucked lightly on the skin there.

“You’re teasing me,” she choked out as his lips made their way down her throat, his fingers still slowly pumping in and out of her as his thumb paid extra attention to her clit.

“You’re catching on,” he retorted, capturing her mouth with his before she could argue.  Her hand grasped his sleeve as he slowly brought her closer to the edge, his tongue trailing over her bottom lip.  Her tongue shot out eagerly to meet his, and they danced for dominance for a moment, until she broke the kiss with a bitten-off moan as he curled his fingers within her, keeping the same slow pace.  He was getting much better at figuring out her weak spots and exploiting them, making her unravel that much faster.  A lot of the time, he found it very difficult to hold on to his own sanity as she fell apart around him, but he was desperate to make it incredible for her every time.

As she drew closer to her crest, he moved a little faster, his arm pumping in and out of her, until he got an idea.  Withdrawing his fingers altogether, Ben dipped his head down between her thighs.

“What are you—” she started, then threw her head back as he trailed his tongue up the slickness of her folds.  She tasted sweet, her desire pooling at the apex of her thighs, and Ben test-tasted her all over, his tongue darting out to catch that small bundle of cells at the very top.  She cursed, loudly, as he stroked it.

“Ben,” she groaned as he brought a hand up, as well, continuing his attack with his fingers as his tongue filled in the blank spots over the rest of her.  He could feel her heightening through the bond, her desire and pleasure mounting in increments as he continued his slow, deliberate ministrations.  Her hands found his hair, grabbing fistfuls of his black curls.

He hooked his fingers again within her, and she fell apart, shooting into the stars as her warm finish cascaded over his fingers and tongue.  He rode it out with her, causing her to cry out, and her legs shook with the exertion as he slowly withdrew.

Her chest heaved as he moved over her, finally kicking his boots off.  She helped him with his pants, sliding the zipper down as he tugged them off.  He settled between her legs as she stared up at him with hooded eyes.  Caressing her cheek, he kissed her, and he felt her satisfaction at tasting herself on his lips.

Fuck, that did something to him.  How could she be both so innocent and so fucking irresistible?

She reached down, trailing her fingertips down his cock, and he grabbed her hand, pressing it into the mattress as he slid himself along the length of her.  She moaned, tugging lightly on his hair, and looked up at him.  Her pupils were blown out with desire, her hair a disarray around the pillow, a light sheen of sweat coating her brown and chest from her orgasm.

“Please,” she whispered, and he pressed his forehead against hers.  “Ben, please,” she said after another moment when he didn’t move.  Her begging broke him.

He plunged into her, filling her all at once, and she gasped, not breaking eye contact with him.  Stars, she was perfection.  There was no feeling in the galaxy that compared to burying himself within her to the hilt.  He kissed her once, then pulled back, desperate to watch how she felt.  Ben moved with slow, deliberate strokes, letting her ride out every inch with every thrust.  All the while, she kept her eyes on his, and he felt out every movement, every impetus as she felt it.  Then, she wrapped her legs around him, and they began moving as one.

Every thrust was matched, and it was pulling Ben to his finish much faster than he’d intended.  He quickened his pace, no longer relishing in each push, and she leaned up to kiss him.  They groaned in unison as his pelvic bone pressed into her clit, their mutual pleasure bending and warping until it was one.  He pressed that spot harder, bearing down as she pulled him tighter against her.  She watched him carefully as he followed her silent instructions, pressing back so their hips were grinding together.

He felt a low groan building in his chest as she tightened around him.  He braced one arm against the wall behind her, wrapping the other around her torso and holding her flush to him as they began building tempo.  Rey wrapped one arm under his shoulder, the other around his neck, never taking her eyes off him as she circled her hips against his with every thrust.  He kissed her as the coil in her core tightened to its breaking point, thrusting harder against her, trying to find her release before he lost his control.

He shifted, and she gasped back a strangled moan, finding her sweet spot.  With his eyes on hers, he drove into her, feeling her climbing faster and faster, until the galaxy shattered around her and that coil snapped.  She screamed his name, her euphoria pouring into him as her nails dug into his shoulders.

He gasped her name in a strangled prayer as his own release erupted, his vision blurring around the edges of her.  Stars erupted behind his eyes, highlighting her and drowning out the rest of the world, and he gave a few more arrhythmic thrusts as he spilled into her.

Stopping, chest heaving, Rey reaches up and pushes his hair back off his face, then pulls him in for a passionate kiss.

_How can I leave?_ she asks, mostly herself, but he heard her across the bond, so she wasn’t trying to hide such a thought.  His breath caught in his throat, and Ben swallowed around the lump it formed.  He presses his forehead against hers, reaching up to wipe away the stray tear that had cascaded down her cheek.

“Stay,” he tries again, knowing her answer, and he’s surprised he asked again despite that.  They were both in too deep, his title opposing the very idea of her.  The closer they grew to Akiva, the more those respective stances wedged themselves between Ben and Rey.  Trying to overtake them, turn them into the Supreme Leader and the last Jedi once more.  She didn’t respond, but he felt his plea tearing her apart, and he shook his head, kissing her ardently.  “Don’t.”

“How can I not?” she asks, a crack in her voice, her mind trying to work out a scenario in which they could stay together and still maintain appearances.  To no avail, of course.

"I’ll find you,” he says, the ring of a promise in his voice.  “As soon as I can, I’ll find you.”  And she nods, but he can tell she isn’t entirely convinced.  For them to finally find peace, this war would have to end, and he’d have to leave behind a government that wasn’t a totalitarian dictatorship, or she wouldn’t let him leave.

He pulls away, and she follows him, kissing him again.  Behind it, he feels all of her emotions that are dwelling just beneath the surface, and he has to let her go before he redirects their course to the other end of the galaxy.  Every minute together makes their time apart that much more imposing, and he knows thinking about it for too long will drive him crazy.

]They silently clean up and redress, and Rey resigns herself to her seat in the cock pit.  Ben watches her from the entry as she pulls her legs up to her chest and watches the stars as they streak by, as many thoughts running through her mind.  All of them are blurry, and she doesn’t dwell on any one long enough for him to see.  She’s wide open to him, not trying – or if she is, failing miserably – to hide her despair.  Separating just feels _wrong_ , like the Force is trying to scream at both of them for even considering it.

“I feel it, too,” he says, an echo of his own words from a million lifetimes ago, and she glances back at him, remembering, as well.  He approaches slowly, sitting beside her, and she’s smiling despite the endless sadness in her eyes.

“Is that when this happened?” she asks, motioning between the two of them.  “When you so rudely interrupted my mind.”

“Maybe,” he says, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, finally giving into her and having this conversation.  “That was when you first caught my eye, anyway.  I looked at you and saw something I recognized.”

“Maybe that endless well of loneliness,” she says, chuckling, and he shrugged, not entirely convinced; he’d dreamt of her, after all.  “Is that why you took me?  Instead of finding BB-8?”  It was incredible how his essential kidnapping of her no longer fazed her.  She seemed entirely at ease with the situation, and he wondered briefly if he should be worried about her mental health, but he realized she might be in the same boat as him.  Might be thankful they had a beginning, no matter how improper it was.

He mulled over her question for a moment.  “I think I…chose you,” he said carefully, “because the Force willed me to.”

“I had been feeling strange,” she admits.  “Like there was something wrong with me.  Like I could, I don’t know, do more than I should have been able.  Like shoot a blaster with little training.  But you getting into my mind, it’s what truly brought down whatever barrier I’d put up within myself, so I could actually feel the Force.”  She eyes him mischievously.  “In a way, you’re to thank.”

“Thank for what?” he asks when she doesn’t continue.  She smirks.

“For me running off to become a Jedi.  I never could have done it without you.”  He takes a slow breath, fighting back a smile.

“I wanted to train you myself,” he reminds her.  “I wanted to keep you.”  She smiles at him but shakes her head.

“We weren’t ready for each other yet,” she says simply, and he sighs.

“We would have worked that out later,” he responds, and she laughs.

“Or we would have hated each other.”

“I never could have hated you,” he says, and she stares at him as she gnaws on her lower lip.  He watches the gears turn over in her head.  It’s true – he knew that long ago, when they’d been aboard Starkiller, and she’d gunned for his life.  She was beautiful and feral, even back then, and the Force had succumbed to her as soon as she willed it.  She was a force of nature, and he’d been fascinated by her.  Even back then.

“I don’t think I could have hated you either,” she admits.  “After you took off that mask, anyway.  Once I could see _you_.”  He watches her curiously, not knowing if she knew he’d destroyed that mask.

“You called me a monster,” he points out, and she shrugs.  “You tried to kill me.”

“That doesn’t mean I hated you,” she murmurs.  He chuckles, leaning back, and she watches him warily.  “What?”

“Nothing,” he says, a smirk still on his face.

“You don’t believe me?”

“I didn’t say that,” he shrugs.

“You don’t!” she accused, but she was laughing too.  He swallows another swell of laughter in his chest.

“I just don’t think you need to lie to yourself,” he says, and she sobers up after a moment, his words churning in her mind.

“I’ve been lying to myself my whole life, Ben,” she says.  “Not about this, though.  I don’t think I can lie to myself about you.”  She leans forward, and he meets her in the middle, capturing her lips with his.  After a moment, she pulls away, but takes his hand, lacing their fingers together.  “I think, even back then, I would have realized what this would become.”  He reaches up, caressing her cheek, and she leans into his palm.  “I would have realized what you would become.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my lovelies!
> 
> Happy Tuesday to all!
> 
> You didn't think I'd let these nerds part without one last dip in the smut fountain, right?
> 
> I also wanted to do the naughty dance from Ben's point of view, because I feel like our softboi is the type that would cry after sex if he wasn't so manly.
> 
> Someone brought up, when Ben refused information about Anakin Skywalker, that it was concerning because those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it. Which I wholeheartedly agree with, but I thought Ben not wanting to hear about Vader, whom he'd been relentlessly obsessing over since the truth of his parentage was revealed, was actually a great stride in his character development. I understand if any of you disagree, though - and trust me, it doesn't quell his curiosity. But he simply doesn't want to care about that anymore.
> 
> Anyway! Next chapter is some angst. Prepare yourselves.
> 
> Leave me kudos! Leave me comments! Ask me questions! The feedback I'm receiving on this story has honestly kept me going - I've hit a rough patch in my career and I'm not even sure if I have a job anymore. But I love all of you so much.
> 
> I'll see you guys on Friday! <3


	24. in which these two space nerds separate and it's kind of sad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, Lover, Please Stay by Nothing But Thieves pairs well with this chapter.

They break Akiva’s atmo a couple hours later, and Ben scans the surface quickly, flying above the planet’s jungle-like terrain in search of any sort of dealer or shipyard.  Rey helpfully points out a small city to the right, and he redirects the Upsilon to the outskirts of a modest middle-class community.  It’s midday, and most of the city folk are milling about, doing their various chores, and Rey takes a moment to assess before she decides that his “huge black beast of a ship” hadn’t been recognized.  Though this was technically First Order territory, any Upsilon landing might cause an unnecessary stir.

The air was heavy with humidity, and Rey pulled her hair back immediately, tying it all into a bun on the top of her head to keep it off her sweaty neck.  She reached for his hand, held it for a minute at most, before they both decided it best not to touch, given the climate.

“I’m used to hot, but this is dreadful,” Rey says as they walk.  “It’s like I’m drowning in the air.”  Ben carries her duffel on his back, and she doesn’t comment, but her eyes rove over him carrying her pack and roll.

They hike for about twenty minutes before the trees break, and Rey had landed them on the back end of town, where a small junk shop took up a few lots with old, beat-up Imperial ships and Coruscant freighters.  Walking confidently into the shop, Ben politely insisted that the old keeper show he and Rey to his finest ship, and Rey eyed him suspiciously as the wave of Force wrapped around the Abednedo man, who took them into the first lot, where an L19 freighter sat proudly amidst all the rubbish surrounding it.

“It still has the originally-equipped hyperdrives,” the Abednedo man says.  He’d said his name, but Ben couldn’t remember it.  “I test them about once a month, make sure they’re still up-to-date.  The top-level gunners work, as well, but the rear-facing cannons aren’t firing these days.”  The man went on and on, listing out the various pros and cons of the ship, and he could feel Rey’s distress as the man boasted about all the work he put into it.  This was truly his pride and joy.

“I’ll take it,” Ben said.  “And four fuel reserves.”  The man nodded, making his way back into the shop, and Rey elbowed Ben in the ribs.

“Four?” she hissed, and he looked down at her from the corner of his eye.

“Just in case,” is all he says as the man comes back with the fuel.  Ben then politely asks if he has any ration packs, and he nods eagerly, walking back to the shop once more.  He comes out with a small satchel’s worth of rations, and Rey shakes her head, but Ben puts a steady hand on her shoulder and leans in.

“They don’t get paid in food here,” he says, and she looks up at him with her eyes narrowed.  As she opens her mouth to retort angrily, the man is back, having bundled up the reserves and the ration packs together.

“Yes, well, I suppose she’s good to go, then,” the man says with a bright smile, his white mustache crinkling with the effort.

“I appreciate it,” Ben says, reaching into his tunic and pulling out a wad of credits.  “You’ll forget that we were here, and that you ever had this ship in your possession.”

“I’ll forget that you were here,” the man replies robotically, and he feels Rey cringe.  “And that I ever had this ship in my possession.”  Ben hands the man the credits, and he turns on his heel immediately, walking back into his shop to wait out Ben’s silent warnings about coming out as the ship took off.  Forgetting them was the most important part, so he’d said it aloud – the rest was inconsequential, truly, but a precaution.

“How much did you give him?” she asks, staring up at him with wide eyes as he leads her toward the lowered ramp of her new ship.

“Enough,” Ben responds, taking in his new surroundings for a moment.  It wasn’t quite as open as his Upsilon, as they entered into a hallway with various doors on either side.  Sleeping quarters, Ben guessed.  There was a door on either side of the ramp, as well, and these were wide.  Ben assumed this was where they kept storage space for deliveries.

They walk into the cock pit, and Rey sets the reserves and the ration packs down, taking in the control panel of the ship.  It wasn’t quite as elegant as the Upsilon, the wear and number of the buttons giving way to the age of this freighter, but she had a look of fascination on her face that Ben adored.  He deposits her duffel next to the satchel of her other reservoirs, and she turns around, pulling him into a tight hug.

“Thank you,” she says, her face buried in his chest.  He holds her there, one arm snaking around her waist as the other cupped the back of her head.  She was breathing deeply, as though trying to inhale his very essence.  And maybe she was; he didn’t mind.

“I’m assuming the various people who’ve owned this ship have done so already, but if you find a tracker, be sure to disable it,” he says into her hair after a moment.  She nods, but he can feel her sarcastic comment about not being reminded of remedial things through the bond.  “I’ll come to you if you need me.”

“I know,” she says, pulling away – too soon – from their embrace and looking up at him.  “Same to you.  Don’t you run off and do something stupid, like get yourself killed.”  She’s serious, but she’s smiling as well, and he looks away.

“I’ll contact you as soon as I can; be sure not to reach out to me beforehand,” he says, and she nods.  Then, she grabs his tunic and pulls him in for a kiss he’d been trying to avoid.

A goodbye kiss.

He holds her to him, because as soon as it breaks, he’ll have to get off this ship and go back to his own, fly back to the Ascendancy and the First order and his throne.  They have the bond, but he knew now it was nothing compared to being with her in person.

She pulls away first, because he’s not strong enough.  “I’ll see you soon,” she says sternly, looking him in the eyes.  He nods, leaning in and placing a chaste kiss on her forehead, before he turns around and stalks off the ship.

Ben sits at the edge of the forest, waiting a few minutes, until the engines of the ship start up after Rey has done her prep check.  Then, she lifts off, the ship surging awkwardly for a moment before she gets a handle on the controls.

She’s speeding off into the sky, growing smaller and smaller, until her freighter is just a pinprick against the light blue sky.  Then, in a streak of stardust, she jumps to lightspeed and disappears.

Ben feels his heart leaving with her.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The trip back to Barkhesh takes a couple of days, and Rey busies herself with learning her new freighter’s workings.  There are six crew cabins aboard the main hall, a small kitchen and dining space near the cock pit, a small ‘fresher with barely enough room for her to fit.  She muses that it might be comical to see Ben in here, trying to use this area, with how tall and broad he is.  She doesn’t let such a thought hurt her, the way it wants to.

Either side of the bulbous ship is open area for catering materials.  Judging from the residue, Rey surmised that this ship was probably used to transport other ship parts to and from the various dealers that have owned it.  She’d have to clean it when she got back to base.

It has two hyperspace engines, though one was connected to a different set of generators, only to be used in the event that something happened to the first engine.  Most of the manual controls were just like the Falcon, though quite a bit newer.  The ship hadn’t been as intensely modified as the Falcon, though, and so did not go nearly as fast.  Still, it was smooth, not the death trap she flew away from Barkhesh in to begin with.  And it had gunners and cannons, though the cannons were not operational at the moment.  She knew, if she couldn’t fix them herself, Chewie would probably be more than happy to assist her.

After a while, she settled into the pilot’s seat, pulling out a ration pack and eating.  More out of necessity than pleasure, unlike the last time she’d had to eat one of these, walking beside Ben in the Tatooine desert.  The memory makes her smile; they’d both been exhausted and dirty, sharing her last ration pack in amicable silence.

The silence on her current ship was much too loud without him to fill the space, and she sighed, walking into the kitchen area to look for water.  It was empty, of course; anything of value was probably loaded and unloaded with every trip.  She sits back down harshly, accidentally kicking her duffel.  It feels far heavier than it should be, and she leans forward, dragging the strap toward her and uncinching the top.

Ben had packed her a few liters of water and some nutrition bars, probably in the event that the junk dealer didn’t have ration packs.  She takes a ragged breath as she pulls a bottle out, wanting to thank the empty space next to her for thinking rationally while she’d been lost in her sadness.

She kept digging after taking a few swigs of water, setting aside the two multitools – the one she brought along with her and the one she’d taken from Obi-Wan Kenobi’s hut.  The rope, her scarf, her bedmat linens, Ben Kenobi’s books, other various odds and ends, until she got to the bottom.

Gasping, hands shaking, she pulled out the small box of caf with the remaining packets inside, and a heavy black fabric that smelled like sandalwood and rain, even after being washed.

His cloak.

Slowly, after she ran the threads over her fingers a few times to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating, she refolded it and buried it back at the bottom, trying to make that scent of him last forever.  The little piece of himself he’d been able to give her, knowing he’d be too many lightyears away.  The proof of him that she might need, those late nights alone, when she couldn’t see him and might have to convince herself that any of it happened at all.

She knew he probably gave it to her for much more practical purposes – she was easily cold, having grown up in a desert, and had spent much of their trip wrapped in it to fight off the chill of the Upsilon.  But for now, it was his sentimental side that had extended to her his existence; whatever it was she needed to keep herself grounded, to believe in him.

It’s two days before the L19 drops out of hyperspace just above Barkhesh, and she circles the planet, turning on her comm and waiting for the Resistance to reach out to her.  It takes a few minutes, because she has no idea what frequency she’s supposed to be tuned to.  Finally, the radio crackles to life, and Poe’s voice fills her cabin.

“Code?”  She speaks her code given months ago, when they’d first landed here and had gone off on missions with Finn; the trio of them having explored various reaches of the galaxy, and yet all at once she felt like she’d seen so much more of it with Ben.

Poe is silent for a moment, and then she gets the green light indicating that she can land.  She takes an uneasy breath as she descends, wondering what kind of crowd will be waiting for her, on this familiarly unfamiliar planet she felt she hadn’t been to in a lifetime.  A week was too long, not long enough for her to have forgotten her place, the way she did.  Or maybe this was never really her place to begin with.

The hangar doors are open, and Rey is surprised.  There’s significantly more ships stowed about than had been the last time she was here – when they had only a handful of X-Wings and a couple of transports.  Now, their X-Wing numbers seemed to have more than quadrupled with higher-class versions, there was a single medical envoy, a handful of extra transports; and, off to one side, was a huge Alsakan-class Starcruiser that Rey didn’t recognize.  She didn’t see Han’s freighter, but this wasn’t abnormal – Chewie kept the Falcon at the other end of the base, in the abandoned hangar Rey had used to train herself with her quarterstaff.

She remembered, all at once, the last day she was here, when they’d sent out a signal to Leia’s old friend in the Far Reaches, and they’d responded, though Rey knew nothing about that transmission.  Had they actually come?  Did they want to help?

The newer-model X-Wings were right up front, like they’d been dropped off more recently, and Rey maneuvered her freighter to an open area a few dozen yards from the doorway, dropping the landing pad.  She felt huge and imposing, her ship much larger than what she’d left in, and she realizes that she would be questioned thoroughly about what happened to her own ship and how she managed to get her hands on something as nice as this freighter.

“Oh, you know,” she said aloud to herself as she gathered her supplies.  “The Supreme Leader of the First Order used the Force to manipulate an old junk dealer into giving us his finest ship.  But don’t worry!  He paid for it after insisting that the man forget we were ever there.”  She sighs but feels a light touch of humor in the back of her mind, and she’s not sure if it’s the ghost of him laughing at her or if he heard her across the bond, but she laughs despite herself.

The hangar is significantly busier than she remembers, unfamiliar faces darting this way and that, more than double the sixty she’d left behind only a week before.  Something had definitely happened, someone had come to the aide of the Resistance.

As she descends the ramp, Finn’s is the first face she sees running down the stairs, and she smiles warmly at her old friend.  He smiles back, trudging up to her and taking the bundle of ration packs and fuel reserves – which she’d not needed.

“Rey,” he breathes, wrapping her in a warm hug that she returns awkwardly, holding her duffel as she is.  “Where the hell have you been?!”

“That’s my question,” a commanding voice rings, making Rey cringe, feeling like a child who had broken curfew.  Leia is standing at the top of the stairs to the hangar, staring down, daunting and huge in her tiny frame.  “Control center.  Now.”

Rey purses her lips, glancing at Finn, who takes her duffel.  “I’ll drop these off in your room,” he whispers.  “And then I’ll be in there.”

“Thank you,” she replies, her own voice barely present.  Despite wanting to stand proudly against Leia, let her know that Rey was right in choosing to leave, she’s practically scurrying like a mouse up the stairs and down the hallway of the base.  Had it always been this long?

Walking in, the bustle of the room stills immediately at the presence of the last Jedi, and she feels a hundred eyes boring into her all at once.  But Leia’s is the gaze she meets, standing at the end of the conference table with her hands on the back of Poe’s chair.  He’s also staring, but Rey refuses to look away from the General.  To do so would make her look like she’d done something wrong, and she refused to fall into that trap.  She _had_ to leave; it was the only way to rebuild her lightsaber.

It was the only way to see Ben.

But the latter she’d be sure to keep to herself.

“Where the hell have you been?” Poe asks after an endless moment of silence, moving to stand, but Leia puts a firm hand on his shoulder, stilling him.  Rey hears the door behind her open, the familiar and friendly presence of Finn filling the space, and a little more confidence blooms in her chest.

“I had to go,” she says, her voice strong and stable, not at all what she was expecting.  “I knew if I asked, you wouldn’t allow it, so I chose to leave on my own.”

“You stole a ship,” Leia chastises her, and Rey shakes her head.

“I stole a hunk of garbage, and I brought back something better, something that will be significantly more useful to our cause.”

“You also removed the transmitter, so we couldn’t find you.”

“Because I knew you’d come after me,” Rey says evenly.  “And what I was doing couldn’t be interrupted, or it may have gone haywire.”

“What _were_ you doing?” Leia asks, an eyebrow cocked, and Rey narrows her eyes, something passing between them in a split second that leaves an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach.  The General has a knowing look on her face, as though she’s assuming anything Rey says next will be a lie.

She pulls the two lightsaber hilts from her belt, holding them out.

“Building this,” she says.  Poe stares at the weapon with wide, amazed eyes, but Leia doesn’t even glance down at it.

“You have two lightsabers now?” Finn asks from behind, moving up so he’s next to Rey, who hasn’t taken her eyes off the General.

“It’s technically one,” she says, twisting the hilts together.  There are too many people in this cramped space to ignite it.  “I had to go to Tatooine, to get the instruction manual.”  Leia nods, as though she’d been anticipating this explanation.  “From there, I traveled back to Ahch-To, where I salvaged Luke’s old lightsaber.”

Finally, after an eternity, Leia looks down at Rey’s new weapon, a sudden softness in her eyes as she takes in the hilt.  One could clearly see the parts that had belonged to both Luke and Anakin, and the pieces of her own quarterstaff mixed in as well.  As though they were three parts to one soul.

“Does it have a green blade?” Leia asks, and Rey wonders if she’s the only one to hear the catch in her voice.

“No,” she says, almost disappointed in her own answer.  “The crystals adhered to my Force signature.  They’re neither blue nor green.”

Leia approaches then, closing the distance between them, and Poe is on his feet in an instant. 

]“Regardless of what you felt you had to do,” Leia says, laying her hands over the hilt, “you still ran off, and didn’t tell anyone where you were going.  We’ve been worried about you, Rey.”  Rey exhales slowly, glancing down at the General’s hands, laying gently over her lightsaber hilt, her fingers lightly brushing against the parts specific to Luke.  “You’re the Light of this Resistance, after all.”

“I know,” is all she says, looking back to the General.  “I didn’t do it to defy you, or the Resistance.  I just…needed this, Leia.”

“I understand,” Leia responds.  Then, she leans in, and Rey bends down, assuming Leia has something more to say, but she shakes her head.

“Um, Rey?” a soft voice asks from behind the computer.  Rose steps out, looking incredibly nervous, and Rey’s heart twists in her chest remembering their last encounter.  “There was word out that you were with another Force user on Tatooine?”

“Ah, yes,” Rey says, trying to calm her nerves with a deep breath.  “Heard about the bounty hunters, did you?”  She wants so badly to tell the truth, but Ben’s words are ringing in her ears about being cast out or not believed, and she swallows around it.  She trusts his judgement.

“Yeah, Rose said you might be looking for other Force users to help us!” Finn pipes up.  Leia glances at Rey, who’s staring at her feet, shuffling awkwardly as she clips her hilt to her belt.

“Oh, no, nothing like that,” Rey scoffs, smiling, trying to force the lie out.  “That planet is flooded with Force energy.  There was another person there who chose to help me when I was attacked.”  She meets Leia’s eyes, then glances down, before meeting Finn’s and Rose’s.  “I didn’t even catch his name.”

Rose approaches slowly, cautiously, and Rey smiles at her, hoping to urge her back into the friendship they so briefly had before Rey left.  Her eyes are wide with some amount of awe, and Rey wants to tell her not to envy her; she knows that would be a breach in trust.

“Is that…  Do you think that’s something we could do?” Rose asks.  “If there are other Force users out there, maybe we could be sway them to our side.”  Finn’s walking up the other side, looking expectantly at Rey, as though this is something she should have been thinking about all along.

“He helped me because I needed help, not because I can use the Force,” Rey responds.  “I’m sorry, I don’t think trying to find an army of Force sensitives would be the best idea.”

“No, I have to agree,” an unfamiliar voice pipes up, and Rey rears around, coming face-to-face with a man she’d never seen before in her life.  He had a smirk on his face, dark eyes swimming with a charming warmth.  His hair was a salt-and-pepper spread, along with his mustache.  He was older, perhaps around Leia’s age, though his smile and his eyes looked youthful and vibrant.  “Lando Calrissian,” he said, extending his hand in greeting.  Rey stared at it for a moment before reaching out tentatively, and his grasp was warm and inviting.  She would have a hard time not liking this man.  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, the last Jedi I’ve heard so much about.”

“Are you Leia’s friend?” Rey asks, noting the way Lando’s fingers lingered on the back of her hand.  He was smooth, she could credit him that.  Even with his age, she could tell that he probably had little issue getting what he wanted.  Especially from those who might be more susceptible to charm.

“I am,” Lando says, flashing that smile again, and Rey can’t help but smile back.  “I hear you’re to thank for that radio transmission.  Leia’s lost distress signal from Crait made its way around the galaxy, but I couldn’t trace the Resistance back to any location, let her know I was on her side and that I wanted to help.”  Finn looks between Rey and Lando with narrowed eyes.

“Oh, it was nothing,” Rey says, suddenly feeling quite bashful.

“It wasn’t nothing,” Poe says, moving around and situating himself firmly between the two of them.  “You literally gave new hope to the Resistance, Rey.  That’s why it was such a blow when we all woke up the next morning and you just disappeared.”  His eyes were wide with sincerity, and Rey felt a lump growing in her throat.  “Our numbers have more than quadrupled, we have an entire new fleet of X-Wings, new transports.  We’re working on a new base ship.”  His eyes were sparkling with delight, and Rey’s excitement was growing with every new gun he added to their arsenal.

“That’s incredible!  We could turn the tables!”  Cheers erupt around the room, though Rey was certain this was something they’d all discussed before.

“We’re not quite ready yet,” the General pops in, but she has an easy smile on her face, as well.  “Our numbers are higher, but we’re still a depleted force.  And we need a base ship, or a couple, we still need a medical transport, we don’t have any bombers.”  She shakes her head.  “We’re getting there, but we still need time.”

“Which is why I’m going to talk to the Queen of Naboo, on Coruscant,” Finn interjects, and Rey spins, looking at him.

“Coruscant is in the Core Worlds,” she replies instantly.  “It housed the Senate.  That could be a suicide mission, surely you’re not serious.”  Finn looks at her for a moment before sighing and turning away.

“I know you haven’t been gone long,” he says, “but things have changed.  We’re stronger now, Rey; we don’t need to stick to the shadows anymore.”

“So you’ll jump straight into the belly of the beast?” Rey asks, crossing her arms, a sneer on her face.  Finn’s eyebrows pinch together in frustration, and he sighs.

“Look,” Poe says before either of them can continue the argument, putting his arms up between them as though he can disengage the situation.  “The Queen of Naboo trusts Leia; _Coruscant_ trusts Leia.  The distress call never made it that far – we only reached out to the Outer Rim, because they were the closest.  But we need their power and their fleet if we’re going to stand a chance against the First Order.”

“Not to mention,” Connix says, her eyes on the computer in front of her.  Rey hadn’t even noticed her, buried behind all of the unfamiliar bodies.  She looked much the same, her hair still twisted into two buns on top of her head, but the deep-set circles of her endless nights awake seemed slightly less prominent than they had the last time Rey had seen her, and it makes Rey smile.  “The First Order has control of almost every major star system in the galaxy, but Naboo operates on its own frequency.  They adhere to the laws of themselves and no others.  The First Order will try and take that freedom from them, the freedom that was agreed upon generations before the Republic or the Empire ever rose.”  She shrugs, glancing up at Rey for the briefest of moments.  “The Order will try and take them over, but we can get to them first, we have the advantage.”

“You think they’ll back us if it means keeping their freedom?” Rey asks, and Finn nods.

“If we get The Queen of Naboo to get Coruscant to back us, we get Chandrila and Kessel and Correllia,” Poe says.  “All systems that trust Leia but fear the First Order more.”  He shakes his head, and his unruly black curls fall into his eyes.  It’s a simple thing, but it makes Rey’s heart ache with familiarity.  “We have the ability to turn the tides by getting Naboo.”

“Plus, now,” Leia says, laying a hand on Rey’s wrist.  “We have the last Jedi back in our midst.”  She gives Rey a knowing look, and Rey smiles.

“What would you have me do?”

“Like you said,” Leia says, standing up a bit straighter.  “Going to Coruscant could potentially be a suicide mission.  The First Order has relocated their main ship that sector in more recent weeks, just after the Queen announced her intent on travelling there for political purposes.  I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”

“No,” she agrees.

“So, you’ll go to with Rose, Poe and Finn to Coruscant.”  Rey’s eyes widen, and Leia nods knowingly.  “I know I can’t keep you here against your will anymore, and they’ll need the last Jedi on this mission; a symbol of hope for the galaxy.  A light.”

“It’s just us four on the surface,” Finn says before Rey can ask.  “We wanted to keep the party small, make us less noticeable.”  Poe nods.

“The backup will be in the air, taking shelter on a nearby moon to avoid any First Order battalions.”

“When do we go?” Rey asks.

“In a week,” Rose answers.  “We planned it out to give you enough time to make it back.  Leia figured you wouldn’t be gone much longer than that.”  Rey looks from Rose to Leia, then sighs slowly.  After a moment, she nods, and everyone breaks apart almost instantly.  Poe rushes back to his holopad, making sure he hadn’t missed anything in the few minutes he’d been away.  Lando touches Rey’s shoulder quickly before turning back toward what Rey assumes are members of his party, discussing another possible reconnaissance to the Ascendancy for more intel.  Finn sticks close to Rey, until Leia waves him off, gesturing the young girl to follow her back out the doors.

Leia escorts Rey down the hall, to the last room that were Rey’s quarters, in silence.  The door slides open at their approach, and Rey takes a deep breath.  She knows it’s not going to be the Upsilon chambers or the hut on Ahch-To, and she isn’t sure how she’ll react to her old chambers, to a bed and a desk and a ‘fresher that are so unfamiliar to her now.

Leia has no such reservations.  She walks in like she’s done so a thousand times – and perhaps she had, looking for any clues as to Rey’s self-imposed mission.

The General sits on Rey’s desk chair, and Rey is surprised that, despite all the new bodies running around, her quarters hadn’t been offered up as an extra bunker.

Leia seems to read her thoughts, saying, “We had some temporary campsites made up on the far side of the island for all the newcomers.  Finn was adamant about not allowing them to touch your things.”  Rey smiles fondly, looking around the room for a moment.  Her bedsheets had been pressed and made up, but everything else was the same.  Her Jedi texts sat in a pile on her desk, next to her datapad and holopad she seldom used, there was still a pile of tools on the floor that she used to fix up the older model X-Wings, still a few spare changes of clothes piled on the shelf next to the ‘fresher.  And Finn had left her duffel and the small bundle of fuel reserves and ration packs right next to the door.  She wants to give the latter as a gift, but now doesn’t seem like the right time.

“Thank you,” she says, taking a seat on her bed.  Leia nods, looking around the room for a moment, before her eyes land on Rey, and the young girl nearly jumps at the intensity of her gaze.

“Where did you get that ship?” she begins her grilling, and Rey takes a slow breath, not breaking eye contact.

“I forgot fuel reserves when I left,” she says slowly, dragging out each word in hopes that Leia doesn’t pick up on her fibbing.  “I had just enough fuel to escape Tatooine and make it to Geonosis, where I hid out for a few days to let the bounty hunter heat die.  The ship was in an old man’s dealer yard.”

“You stole it?”  But Leia has the barest hint of a smile on her face.

“I didn’t exactly have the credits to buy it,” Rey retorts, still feeling incredibly uneasy about this conversation.  Surely it didn’t need to be had in private quarters?  She knew the General well enough by now to know that there was always an agenda; the old woman was ferocious when she needed something that someone else had, whether it be supplies or information.

“Did you influence the junk dealer?” Leia asks, and Rey is taken aback by this question.

“Yes,” she answers, and she feels like this might be the most honest response she’s had yet – she hadn’t influenced him, but someone had.

“You influenced Rose before you left,” Leia says knowingly, and Rey blanches, taking a shaky breath, trying to take back control of this conversation.  If she ever had the reigns to begin with, which more and more is starting to seem like no.

“She…caught me, trying to leave, and threatened to turn me in for abandonment.”  It was a half-truth, but Leia nods, as though she’d been expecting this, as well.  Her brown eyes are so intense, Rey’s mind is warring with itself, torn between looking away and keeping her determination.  But the eyes were throwing her; they were far too similar to Ben’s, and the intense gazes he gave her when he was angry.

“I have no intention of telling her,” Leia says dismissively, but that’s not what Rey is worried about.  She’s not sure what will make the weight on her chest leave.  Leia leans forward, and Rey has to stop herself from moving back.  There’s a fire in the General’s eyes, a spark of recognition, and perhaps a little longing.  She stares at Rey for an immeasurable amount of time, and Rey can feel herself becoming restless under such heat.

“General, if I may—”

“Were you with him?” Leia interrupts Rey’s half-hearted attempt to use the ‘fresher, just to take a moment to breathe.  Rey turns her eyes, widened with shock, on Leia, trying to force the lie out.  Because they both know who she’s talking about, but Rey has to pretend she doesn’t.

“With who?”  She’s surprised when her voice doesn’t crack.

“Rey, we both know some random Force sensitive didn’t assist you in running from bounty hunters without turning you into the Order himself.”  Leia shakes her head, as though even the idea of such a suggestion was blasphemy.  “Especially not on a planet like Tatooine.”

“Yes, but—”

“So, were you with him?” she asks again, trying to break down Rey’s defenses, force the words out of her mouth

“I still don’t know who you’re talking about.”  Leia takes a slow breath, closing her eyes for a moment, and when she opens them, the fire is extinguished.  It leaves Rey breathless.  The General, usually so formidable and incredible, suddenly looked every bit her age.  She wrung her hands, prickled and wrinkled with her scarred years.  When she looks at Rey again, there’s an infinite sadness in her eyes that Rey has to look away from before it consumes her.

“ _Ben_ ,” Leia stresses, and the word fills the air so heavily it feels like she’s back in the humid air of Akiva.  “My son.  You were with him.”

“I don’t—”

“It never really made sense to me,” Leia says, such a fan of cutting off Rey before she can finish her sentences this evening.  “How you managed to infiltrate the First Order defenses, get aboard the Supremacy, and take out Snoke without getting caught.  From our intel, I know the lift up to his throne room was only accessible with certain security clearance.  That led me to believe you had an accomplice.”  Leia takes a slow breath.  “I _never_ considered that it could be Ben, not until you were spotted on Tatooine with another Force user.”  Rey wrings her hands, trying not to chew on her bottom lip as she considers her response carefully.

“Kylo Ren is the Supreme Leader of the First Order,” Rey says, meeting Leia’s eyes with an even tone.  She’s honestly afraid that this woman before her will see right through her.  “He wants my blood for the murder of the former Supreme Leader.”

“Does he?” Leia says, and Rey can tell by her tone that she’s not convinced.

“I double-crossed Snoke,” Rey says, running through her conversations with Ben as quickly as she can, trying to dig through her memories for information.  “He wanted to take me on as a second apprentice, and I killed him, then used his escape pod to run after I defeated the Praetorian Guard and Kylo Ren.”  This was more information than she’d given anyone when she’d first had the bounty put on her head.  The lie left a sour taste in her mouth.  Leia couldn’t understand, she had no hope in Ben.  That was left to Rey and Rey alone.

Leia stares at her, that fire returning to her eyes, and Rey is suddenly very aware that Leia knows she’s being lied to.  Perhaps she can feel it in the Force, or perhaps Rey just has some type of tell she hasn’t recognized, but she knows.  Rey feels a prickling sensation on the back of her neck, and she’s trying desperately not to break out into a cold sweat.

“I suppose that’s all the information you’ll offer me,” Leia says, standing and heading for the door.  She takes one last look at Rey, who hasn’t moved an inch from her perch on her bed.  “I hope that, maybe someday, you can tell me what actually happened out there.”

And then she’s gone.

Rey breathes out, her hands shaking, tears forming in her eyes all at once and spilling over.  Tears for her lying, for Rose, for leaving behind Finn to worry, for nearly being caught on Tatooine.

Tears for Ben.  For watching him leave and not trying to find another solution, despite the fact that the air around her is so empty when he’s not occupying it.

She wants to reach out to him, but he said he’d call for her when he was available, which led her to believe he probably had a lot more on his plate than he was letting on.  The bond was still alive and well in her mind, thrumming with her emotions, and she tentatively reached out, feeling for him.  She was met with his cold anger, and she pulls back immediately, not wanting to get involved with his seething as he’s probably trying to put his Order back together.

So she digs through her duffel, finding the cloak he left for her, and cries alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my lovelies!
> 
> I told you there was some angst coming. And Leia being so blatant - that has to be heavy for our poor Rey.
> 
> Our space nerds probably don't know how to function well without each other, but I guess we'll find out.
> 
> Life update: I did end up losing my job (due to anxiety-related issues) but honestly I think my former manager is more upset about it than I am. Truly, I think this was for the best. I might take some time off, or maybe work part-time, just to pay my bills, until I move in September to California. I appreciate everyone's support, though! It was honestly inspiring. You guys and the Prozac are my support system lol.
> 
> ANYWAY enough of Trish's drama.
> 
> On the bright side, I went and saw Killer Klowns From Outer Space in theaters (which, if you don't know what that is, please rent it. It's the best sci-fi/horror film from the 1980s and they celebrated their 30th anniversary recently). So that was super fun. I made all of my siblings go, and a few friends.
> 
> I haven't seen Solo yet so no spoilers!
> 
> I love you all! Really, I'm 100% convinced I have the best readers on this website, I'll die by that statement.
> 
> Leave me kudos! Leave me comments! Ask me questions!
> 
> I'll see you guys on Tuesday!


	25. in which our space nerds have to deal with being apart and the implications of that

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, Dust to Dust by The Civil Wars pairs well with this chapter.

The journey back to the Ascendancy is unceremonious, Ben focusing solely on flying the Upsilon through space to avoid his thoughts drifting to Rey.  She’d looked so utterly despondent, her eyes betraying every emotion she couldn’t say as he embraced her that last time until stars know when.  Just the mere sight of her endless sadness had been enough to put him on edge, but he found it almost relieving when he’d ascended the ramp of his Upsilon after watching her leave and hadn’t felt the desire to destroy anything.

Now, five days back to his throne aboard the Ascendancy, Ren’s resolve is waning in strides, his body begging for more of a physical release than just his basic workouts against sparring droids.  He’d destroyed enough since his days returned that the service workers were beginning to take notice and count.  Request for funding to build more had run across his desk already, and Ren had approved it.

Hux was – somehow, amazingly – even more insufferable than he had been prior to Ren’s departure.  Constantly on his heels, running through contingency plans, through intercepted transmissions, through potential Resistance leads.  Listing off the fires he’d been so apt to put out upon Ren’s extended absence.  He’d asked for a more detailed explanation all of once before a mere look from Ren had quieted the lank ginger man, stopping only for a moment with his barrage of information before resuming his briefing.

Though Ren had been relatively thorough in his absence, checking his datapad often enough to approve certain funds transfers and mission requests, his two days on Ahch-To had put him so far behind even the seven-hour trip back to the main Star Destroyer after dropping Rey off hadn’t been enough time to play catch up.  Upon realizing the massive amount of information he’d have to sort through upon his return, he waited at the other end of the bond for long enough to know Rey had landed safely on her Resistance base – making some sarcastic comment about where she’d gotten her L19 freighter – before he’d painfully tucked her away, unwilling to let her see the barrage of administrative work and his declining mood with it.  He thought, at one point, that she’d been there, looking for him, but as soon he had the opportunity to check, her end of the bond was quietly drifting into unconsciousness.

Sleep had evaded him for the most part since his return, as well.  The endless datapad and holopad transmissions coupled with her absence had allowed what few hours he could find to rest to be fraught with nightmares once more.  They’d all but disappeared when he’d been within her presence but were inclined to return as soon as she was gone.  As though the Force was reinstating what he already knew – letting her go had been against the natural balance of his very being.

On the fifth night, after an exhausting number of strategic meetings that were mostly just idiotic arguments amongst his subordinates he was required to be present for, Ren flopped into bed after a quick shower, took a slow breath, and reached out to her.

Rey was there almost immediately, standing on the other end of the room, staring him down with unbridled fury in her eyes.

“Where the kriff have you been!?”  He could tell she wanted to shout, but was holding her voice, unwilling to let anyone close enough hear her argument with her ghost.

“Busy,” he responded, refusing to let her anger seep into him, as it was always so inclined to do when she was like this.  Her rage was beautiful, albeit deadly.

“Busy?  Really?”  She crosses her arms over her chest.  “I’ve been worried sick about you, Ben Solo, waiting for you to come to me.  Fearing the worst but trying not to reach out to you because you told me not to.  And you come here, lay on my bed half-clothed, and the best explanation you have is _‘busy’_?”

“In my defense,” he says, sitting up on his elbows and looking at her.  He notes the way her eyes drop down to his bare chest for just a moment before they’re boring into his own.  “I’m in my own bed.”

She threw her hands up in the air, exasperated, and he couldn’t help but laugh.  Something about her was incredibly appealing when she was angry, and he sat up completely, throwing his legs over the side of the bed to stand.  She watched him, her gaze softening as she took him in, the anger bleeding away to give truth to her worry.

She had dark circles beneath her eyes, but she reached up as he closed the distance between them, her thumbs caressing his before he could touch her.  Her hands were warm and soft against his skin, and he could almost pretend she was really here, standing before him, if he didn’t focus too hard.

“You need to sleep,” she says softly, and he leans against her palm as her thumb lightly traces his cheekbone.  He cups his hand with her own, holding it against his face, as the fingertips of her other hand slide down his neck before resting innocuously over his heart.

“I could say the same to you,” he responds, finally bringing his hand up.  It rests against the side of her face, his thumb trailing across her cheekbone, down the side of her nose and lightly over her lips.  He feels her intake of breath, watches the way her lips tremble, before he can’t help himself anymore.  He leans down, carefully capturing them with his own.

It’s not quite the same, he notices with a touch of dismay.  She feels off, slightly, like a projection; a ghost of herself.  But she’s still real and vibrant beneath his hands, and he knows that he’s getting more than anyone else gets, separated from the one person they truly care about by star systems.  She kisses him back, her anger dispelling completely as she wraps her arms around his shoulders and pulls herself to him.

He breaks away slowly, brushing her hair back from her face and tucking it behind her ear.  She has some of it braided back, but most of it is hanging down past her collarbones, and he fingers the soft strands carefully.  She sighs softly, looking up at him, her hazel eyes swimming with a million emotions.

“Come,” he says carefully, leading her back to the bed – to her bed, that he couldn’t see, and to his bed, that she wouldn’t recognize.  She sits on the edge, and he sits beside her.

“So,” she begins, eyeing him carefully.  “Busy, huh?”  And he can’t help the smile that breaks across his face.  She watches him carefully, like she’s trying to memorize the look on his face, her eyes far too intense for the joking aura he’s trying to project.

“There were a couple of small rebellions with my absence,” he relents.  “Nothing that couldn’t be handled by Hux and his subordinates, but I had to be briefed on every detail.  One of my officers needed the funding to kickstart a garrison on an unclaimed system in the Outer Rim.  I had to approve new weapon designs, I went over the elements of various missions my volunteer soldiers were meant to go on—”

“Enough,” Rey says, rubbing her temples.  “I can’t stand it, it’s far too boring.”

“I know,” he says.  She turned her body, putting one leg up on the bed so she could face him better, an incredulous look in her eye.  “What about you?  What have you been doing?”

“Well,” she said, straightening her spine.  “As predicted, my absence caused very little distress, save for various people worrying – unnecessarily – about my well-being.  Apparently, the bounty hunter messages made it out here.”  She wrinkled her nose, but he nodded knowingly; this came as no surprise.  “The General, Finn, Poe; all incredibly unhappy with my sudden and extended departure.  But, I’m not grounded anymore.”  Her eyes were smiling, but Ben was brought up slightly flabbergasted.

“Is that the best idea?” he asks after a moment, and she shrugs.

“I think so.  Otherwise I’ll just go stir crazy again, settled here, not contributing to the cause.”  She takes him in for a moment.  “I can take care of myself, Ben.”

“I know,” he says, although he’s somewhat unconvinced.  It would be more difficult than he was willing to admit, knowing she was traversing the galaxy without him there to protect her.  She’s absolutely right; her new lightsaber made her a formidable opponent, and he pitied whatever being fell to her blade first.  It would be a truly incredible sight, and he would be crestfallen to miss the moment she ignites those blades against whoever was gunning for her life.

“Do you know where they’re sending you next?” he asks after a spell of silence.  She nods, but her lips remain closed, and he sighs.  She wouldn’t give him any information he could use against the Resistance.  Which was wise of her.  If someone managed to get anything she told him, they’d use it to their advantage.  In the event that the Resistance was endangered, Ben knew he wouldn’t hesitate; he’d extract her, and damn the consequences, letting her friends die if that was the way the Force willed it.

She pulls him into an embrace, suddenly remembering that he’s not actually in the room with her, and that their time together may be limited; the bond was always so nitpicky in the past.  He agrees with her silent sentiment, leaning into her, wrapping his hands around her waist.  After a moment, he moves them further onto the bed, her head nestled against his chest.  Was it only a week ago, when they’d curled together just like this aboard his Upsilon, and he’d been incredibly self-conscious?  Now, it was the most natural thing in the world.  Their bodies lined up perfectly, twining around each other, two halves of a whole.

“You should sleep,” he says, and she shakes her head.

“I don’t want to lose any time with you,” she responds.  “Who knows when we’ll have this again?”  Ben takes a moment to think about it.  Having her here, wrapped up in his arms, warm and as solid as she can be, he knows he was foolish to keep her at bay for so long.  Despite his endless hours filing through the mess subsequent to his absence, if he’d chosen to reach out to her and she’d been asleep, that would have provided him a better state of mind to get through it.  Unknowingly curled up in his bed, unconscious to his presence, perhaps he would have slept better.

“Tomorrow,” he vows, and she looks up at him.  “You’ll see me again tomorrow.”

“Do you promise?” she asks, and he can tell by the cringe she gives that she hadn’t meant to word it that way.  But the words are easy.

“I promise,” he says, kissing the crown of her head.  She sighs into him, snuggling closer to his chest.  He turns to face her, and they reach down at the same time, pulling their respective blankets up over themselves and each other.

He lies there, running his fingers up and down the length of her spine, until long after she’s fallen asleep.  She breathes deeply, and her dreams drift lightly through his mind.  He explores them thoughtfully, watching as she dreams of light situations, all revolving around him, around them.  She dreams of running away to some remote planet with him, living their life.  Conjuring images and emotions of a depth that he couldn’t dwell on for too long, or he’d go find her, so they could live out her fantasies.

Slowly, lying there, watching her sleep, watching her dream, he begins to think.  Images, really, but, one by one, they begin forming a plan, clicking together like puzzle pieces.

She’s right there at the center.  The sun in his sky.  A ray of light, obstructing the darkness within him, blindingly bright.

 ...

Eventually, Ben falls asleep, Rey curled in his arms, her breath against his neck.  Just like when they were back on Ahch-To, when she’d drape herself across him, trying to absorb the warmth of his body.  When he wakes, she’s gone, the empty space she’d previously occupied cold.  Still, he’d slept dreamlessly, as if she’d been there all night.

He’s awoken the following morning from an incessant beeping indicating his required presence on the bridge.  Groaning, he untangles himself from the bedsheets, slamming his hand on the button to let Hux know he got the message before he got dressed.

Despite the General’s horrid alarm clock, Ren felt more rested than he had all week, his body relishing in the full night of sleep after so many days barely resting.  He checked on Rey from across the bond, found her awake and content as she indulged herself on some sort of breakfast.  She’s nearly worshipping the taste of the food, her thoughts on his deplorable nutrient bars, before she takes notice of him.

_“Don’t forget to indulge every now and then, Supreme Leader_ , _”_ she reminds him upon feeling his waking presence, and he smirks.

_"Noted_ , _”_ he responds, and he feels her chuckle before she disengages him, probably having her own operation to attend.

Meanwhile, he’s scarfing down one aforementioned deplorable nutrient bar before he takes his leave, hastily making his way down to the bridge.  He couldn’t imagine anything important enough for Hux to summon him straight from his bed chambers – even a rabid cur would know better than to interrupt such without good reason.

Stormtroopers duck out of his way as he marches with a purpose, and he’s somewhat relieved his prolonged absence hadn’t changed the fear they felt upon regarding him.  It was far easier this way, knowing he was surrounded by subordinates who would do as they were told, simply to avoid facing his wrath.

Hux is pacing excitedly up and down the bridge when Ren rounds the corner.  The space was busy, officers clacking away on their computers, making sure the ship was running seamlessly, that nothing was obstructing their slow takeover of the galaxy.  When he sees Ren, his eyes widen almost imperceptibly – just enough to let Ren know whatever the General had to say would probably not be good news.

“So nice of you to join us, Supreme Leader,” Hux says in greeting, his tone seeping that mockery no one else would recognize.  Ren eyes him steadily, not responding, watching as Hux grows slightly uncomfortable under his scrutinizing gaze.  He shuffles, then clears his throat.  “I believe we have intel that may pique your interest.”

“Oh?” Ren asks, barely stopping himself from making a comment about his interrupted sleep – as far as anyone aboard this ship knew, Kylo Ren had no need for such a human façade.  He preferred to keep it that way.  “Please, indulge me, General.”

"As you are well aware, we have a network of spies, keeping their eyes open within the Core Worlds for any sign of abnegation within our strongest controlled systems.”  Ren nodded, all of this old news.  “Our strongest opposition has always been met within Naboo – a democratic monarchy that we haven’t been able to touch, no matter what our courses of attack have been.”  Hux takes a slow breath, his eyes sharp as they move from one face to the other within the room.  “The intent of Starkiller’s next attack was meant to be the Naboo system – we would be taking out a large supporter of the New Republic and an annoyingly obstreperous government.”

“I was aware,” Ren says coldly, willing Hux to come to the point of his explanation quicker.  There were so many other things he would rather be doing.  He never agreed with wiping out the systems using Starkiller – that was all Snoke.

“Yes, well,” Hux straightens his collar – unnecessarily, his coat was pristine, “we have reason to believe the Queen of Naboo has made voyage to Coruscant in more recent days.”

“Not abnormal for Her Highness,” Ren says, staring Hux down, who is studiously looking anywhere else.  “Our takeover of Coruscant came as no surprise; however, their trading allegiance with Naboo was never negotiated upon.”

“Quite,” Hux agrees.  “However, our spy network has alluded to the fact that the Resistance will be joining the Queen on Coruscant.”  Finally, Hux meets Ren’s eyes, the steely blue unforgiving and excited.  If Ren didn’t know any better, he would assume Hux was almost…aroused at this event.  The thought makes him want to gag, but he knows his face hasn’t changed, still a stony mask.

“You trust this one particular spy?” Ren clarifies.

“With my life,” Hux says proudly.  “I appointed him myself – trained with him, ran missions during our academy days, then graduated him when his skillset proved to be most noteworthy.”

“So you believe the Resistance is going to try and persuade Naboo to their side.”

“I do,” Hux says slowly, his eyes taking a slight note of disapproval when he realizes Ren is not nearly as impressed with his military prowess as he had clearly been hoping.  “They’re going to try and use their trump card – word has it they’ve been rebuilding much faster than we had anticipated prior.”  Ren’s eyes narrow.

“How much faster?”

“We have no way of knowing for certain,” Hux says, once more looking anywhere that’s not at Ren – trying not to trip over his words, no doubt.  “But rumors spread rather quickly, and it seemed General Organa had yet another trick up her sleeve.”

“As to be expected,” Ren says, so softly he isn’t sure Hux even heard him.  “What was it you said, about a trump card?”

“Ah, yes,” Hux responds, his face taking on a sneer.  “It seems the scavenger you let escape – _again_ – is back in the midst of the Resistance.  The last Jedi, as she now calls herself – my spy confirmed that she’d be traveling with the Resistance fleet, to meet the Queen.”  Ren barely even notes the insolence in Hux’s tone.

Nerves are striking through to Ben’s core – hearing a sniveling, conniving snake like Hux even mention Rey made his blood boil.  He was desperate to strike down the man that stood before him, more desperate to call off the plan.  But doing so would cause commotion, would alert his Order to his internal change.  Those nearest to him would rise up, try to overthrow him – not that they’d succeed, but he refused to dwell on what might happen if they managed to capture him.  Would they go after Rey still?

It’s only then when Ren takes note of the hangar below, the stars streaking by, no longer floating idly through space as they had been.  They’re traveling, going to Coruscant, no doubt, to intercept the scavenger and whatever Resistance was going to join her on her mission to turn Naboo and its associated planets against the First Order.  Coruscant, Chandrilla, Corellia; a number of others seeking shelter from the erratic storm that was the First Order.

“I thought you might want to know,” Hux continues, completely oblivious to Ren’s conflict.  “Seeing as you’re so apt to mention that her escape is your mistake, I thought you might want to go after her yourself.”

“Accurate sentiment,” Ren replies immediately, though his eyes are still on the streaks of stars.

“From reconnaissance, we know that the Resistance plans on landing upon Coruscant in three days.”  Hux glances at the hyperspace tell over his shoulder, as well.  “We’re traveling to a nearby system, far enough away to be out of their detection, but close enough that we’d only be an hour’s jump to lightspeed away.  We should be arriving at the same time.”

“What is the plan from there?” Ren asks, and Hux eyes him curiously – this isn’t typically the information the Supreme Leader desired, if he desired any information at all.

“As of now, we’re waiting on the word from the spy network – as soon as he sees any Resistance member, we’re to be alerted.”

“And from there, we’ll only be an hour away, so we can make our move as quickly as possible,” Ren gives a dismissive wave of his hand, but his stomach is tightening uncomfortably in his body.  “Anything else?”

“We’re going to have our negotiators on stand-by,” Hux informs him.  “We’ll take the alliance of Naboo by force, if we must.”

“Very good,” Ren says with a pert nod, turning on his heel and walking away.

As soon as he’s back in his chambers, he deflates, staring at his gloved hands as the leather encasing them suddenly feels entirely too tight, too suffocating.  He flings them off, throwing them at his desk and powering on his holo-projector.  With a short-lived amount of smug satisfaction, he realizes that someone has been searching his datafiles.  Sighing, Ben runs his hands through his hair, fisting them at the nape of his neck.

This whole Coruscant operation would put a huge wrench in Ben’s plan, the one that had precariously begun forming the night before, and his hands are shaking as he punches in the correct numeric password to access his personal archives.

He had to find out who Hux’s spy was.  He had to make sure the rat didn’t talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my lovelies!
> 
> Look at Everyone's Favorite Supreme Leader™, being a Supreme Leader and stuff.
> 
> And he found out Rey's plan without Rey telling him herself, which is not surprising at all because Hux is a sleazeball. Honestly I hate that guy lol.
> 
> ANYWAY.
> 
> I know it's a bit of a shorter chapter, but I'll be back on Friday, and our space nerds are gonna talk again because Ben is not excited about Rey running to Coruscant. For the same reasons Rey was not excited about Finn running to Coruscant. Funny how we run full circle like that, isn't it?
> 
> You guys have been the most supportive people in the whole goddamn universe, I swear. Thank you all so much, both for your support in this story and you each supporting me in my jobless endeavors lol. I'm going up to the office today to pick up my stuff, and everything sort of happened on the hush-hush, so I'm not excited about seeing my old coworkers, but I just gotta buck up and deal with it.
> 
> I love you guys. Please keep the love coming - we're getting closer to the end, and our space nerds have a lot ahead of them still. It's a wild ride (from my perspective anyway, idk how you guys will feel).
> 
> Leave me comments! Ask me questions! PLEASE leave me kudos (validate me)! The feedback on this story is incredible and amazing and fantastic and every other positive adjective in every language.
> 
> I love you guys! See you Friday!


	26. in which two space nerds are traveling to the same place, only separately, and act dumb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, Light Me Up by Ingrid Michaelson goes well with this chapter (thanks, Eudora!)

The day after Ben finally visited, Rey slept easier than she had since they left Ahch-To, her body well-rested and her energy significantly higher than it had been.  She was somewhat sad to see that Ben hadn’t remained in her bed for the night, but at least he had come.  He hadn’t just left her after spending those fantastic days together, as she had begun to fear the more time he went without making contact.  She dressed and made her way down to the mess hall, the room a bustle of activity already.

Her tray of food filled nearly to the brim, she once more thanked the stars and whatever gods that were willing to listen that she didn’t have to spend another day eating nutrition bars.  Of course, it was exactly that moment that she felt Ben’s gentle nudging in the back of her mind, tentatively checking on her.  She felt his humor at her statement and sent him a quick reminder to indulge every now and then, albeit slightly sarcastic.

_"Noted,”_ he responded, right as he bit into a nutrition bar, and Rey would swear she could taste it.  She took three huge bites of the fruit on her tray, trying to dispel the tasteless abhorrence in her mouth.

Rose came over then, sitting across from Rey of her own accord, despite the fact that neither Finn nor Poe were anywhere to be found.  Rey looked up at her, cheeks bulging with half-chewed fruit, and Rose registered her for a mere moment before she was laughing, her eyes crinkling with humor, head thrown back in genuine.  Such a sound was never directed at Rey, seldom more at Finn, and Rey was completely taken aback by Rose’s sudden change in behavior.

“You look like a puffer fish,” she gasped, a hand across her stomach as Rey struggled to swallow the food before the laughter overtook her, as well.  Unbidden – it made her cheeks ache with the effort, and she was more excited than she could say to know that the brief camaraderie they developed before Rey wiped her mind hadn’t completely vanished.  Instead, the girl laughed at and with Rey until both of their cheeks were rosy.  It took a moment, but the laughter died down, and they smiled genuinely at each other, no hint of that self-proclaimed envy anywhere in Rose’s expression.

“What’s so funny?” Finn asked as he sat down beside Rose.  The two girls glanced at each other, and Rey filled her mouth with air, puffing out her cheeks as best as she could while they both fell into a fit of giggles once more.

After breakfast, Poe called everyone into the conference room for a briefing session.  They were a mere three days out from their mission to Coruscant, and though Rey, Finn, Poe and Rose would be the only four touching ground, they still needed a more concrete plan to send part of the fleet to keep their eyes open for any lurking danger.  Leia and Chewie were going to keep watch from a nearby abandoned moon base with the Falcon, Connix offering to stay aboard to act as the gunner if things went south.  Lando had also put his two-sense in, saying he had no real desire to participate in the potential conflict, but he was sending his main ship to act as a temporary mothership to house a fleet of X-Wings.

“It’s not unlikely that the First Order knows our plan to descend on Coruscant; they seem to be one step ahead of us more often than not, and I don’t want to take any risks,” Poe clarifies, and the rest of the table nods.  “But it’s improbable they know our reason for being there, and if we can stick to the shadows, we can out-maneuver them.”   The room is crammed full of the hundred or so Resistance members that are now part of this mission.  As the weight of it settled on their shoulders, Rey surmised that Poe, Leia and Lando all realized what kind of a critical juncture winning over the Queen of Naboo might be.  In the unlikely event that they were ambushed, it would be better to have the fight as far away from Coruscant as possible.

Still, after a day spent updating X-Wings and training with her saberstaff, Rey sat awake anxiously, waiting for Ben to come, so she could try and coax information out of him.  She knew he’d offer it willingly, if she asked – but that felt like too much.  And the last thing she wanted to do was take advantage of his trust in her.  And she thought he’d tell her if they knew.  Wouldn’t he?

She’s pacing as she contemplates this.

The calm she feels before his appearance wraps around her about half an hour later – she sighs into his presence as it envelopes her, just before his arms do.  He’s standing behind her, his forehead on her shoulder.  Her head lolls to the side, leaning against his, as his arms wrap around her shoulders and waist.  Tension is rolling off of him in waves, and Rey brings a calming hand up, carding it through his hair in an attempt to soothe him.

"What’s wrong?” she asks after a moment, when he makes no move to leave or let her go.

“You’re going to Coruscant?” he asks, and she feels her chest constrict.  They do know.  How?  “Hux has a spy network – you had to have known that,” he answers her silent question.  “It is the house of the Senate.  You think the First Order doesn’t have complete control of it?”

“I never expected anything less,” she replies honestly.  “I knew it was a dangerous mission as soon as I heard of it.”

“Then why go?”

“That’s a silly question,” she says, but there’s more anger in her voice than there is humor.  “You’d have me leave my friends to die at the hands of your soldiers?  You’d have me be a coward?”  He finally lets her go then, and she spins to face him, able to see his eyes.

They are pleading with her, and she softens instantly at the utter dejection on his face.

“I won’t be able to protect you,” he says.  She nods knowingly.

“I don’t need you to protect me, Ben,” she responds, putting both of her hands on either side of his neck.  Her thumb automatically traces the scar there, the one she gave him so long ago.  When they’d been on two sides of a war.  After everything they’d been through together, how was it they still managed to be on the same opposing sides of that same war?

“I know you don’t,” he laments, his fists clenching at his sides.  She rubs soothing circles with her thumbs against his jawline.

“But you’re afraid,” she whispers.  Because he is; she can feel it almost as solidly as she feels herself.  He doesn’t admit it, but he doesn’t respond, either.

She reaches up then, wrapping her arms around him and crushing her lips to his.  He reciprocates, kissing her back just as fervently, his hands coming to tangle in her hair.  Their kiss saying all the words they couldn’t.

_I don’t know if I’ll be able to help you if you’re exposed._

_Let me worry about that when the time comes._   He pulls away, resting his forehead against hers, but he’s shaking his head slowly.

“Ben,” she warns as he opens his mouth to speak.  “Don’t say it.”  He doesn’t listen.

“If something happens, I _will_ come for you.”  She’s shaking her head, but he continues.  “And I will not hesitate to pull you out of the fire.”

“You would run away?” she asks incredulously.  “Just like that?  That was never an option before.”

“Before it wasn’t your life,” he responds simply.  She gawks, pulling away from his embrace, but he doesn’t release her.  She puts her hands on his chest, pushing, and he follows her, stepping every time she tries to move back, until he has her caged in his arms against the wall.  She gives up trying to part herself from him – not that she exactly wanted to.

“It has always been my life,” she stresses, taking a slow breath.  “It has been the life of the people I care about.  They’re linked to me, Ben.”

“I don’t care about any of them,” he retorts, and she sighs, trying to avoid being steered into her anger.

“I know you don’t,” she says between her clenched teeth.  He’s leaning closer to her, making it harder for her to breathe.  Her mind was so full of him; his eyes as they watched her carefully, his lips as they parted, taking in a ragged breath.  He’s trying to distract her, and she’s angry with herself when she realizes that it’s working.

He looks so young just then, as he’s towering over her.  His eyes are soft and warm, a deep, endlessly rich soil she’s burying herself in.  And Rey is the one to close the distance, despite her internal conflict about not falling for his distractions.  He kisses her back, still caging her in with his arms, her back against the wall.  She fists her hands in his tunic, and it’s a strange sort of feeling, realizing she can feel her fingers digging into her palm more than she can feel the fabric.  But his skin is almost indistinguishable from reality.

She pulls back first, shaking her head with her eyes closed, feeling his gaze upon her as she tries to collect her thoughts.  He’s brushing his lips against her forehead, her nose, her cheek, her jaw – anywhere he thinks will stir her mind in another direction.

“Ben,” she says softly, and it’s halfway a moan, halfway a demand.  His lips, soft and supple, slip down her neck, to the small area of her shoulder exposed before her tunic.  He’s drawing closer still, his body nearly aligned with hers.  His teeth scrape against that delicate skin, and she rolls her head, giving him more access.  She feels him smile against her.

It breaks the trance, and she opens her eyes as she pushes deftly against his shoulders.  “I believe we were having a conversation.”  He sighs, nuzzling his face into her neck.

“I thought we’d moved past that.”

“No, you were trying to seduce me away from my thinking,” she says defiantly.

“I’d almost succeeded, too,” he says.

“Ben, we have to talk about this.  We have to figure out a course of action so that the Resistance doesn’t get completely slaughtered when the First Order attacks.”  He finally steps away from her then, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration, and Rey takes a full breath for the first time since he got here.  It was far too easy to lose herself in his gentle touches.  She’d have to be more mindful the next time she wanted to have a serious conversation with him.

“Protecting the Resistance is not my prerogative,” he reminds her.

“No, but you insist that protecting me is.”  She’s trying to do what he does – turn this around, make it his idea.  She’s not sure she’s as good as it as he is.  “So, protect me.  By helping me protect them.”

He runs a hand through his hair, walking over and sitting on her bed.  Or his bed, she supposes, from his point of view.  After a moment, he remains quiet, and she moves to sit next to him, setting a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“What’s your plan?” he asks, and she takes a slow breath.  It would be safe, right?  Hux already knows they’re going to Coruscant – he’d probably already moved whatever Star Destroyer he had lined up to take them out into the system.  Ben is shaking his head.  “Not any Star Destroyer.  The Ascendancy.”

“Your Master Destroyer?”

“Yes,” Ben says, breathing in deeply.  “It has the most firepower, and Hux feels the need to compensate for the lost Dreadnaught.  Or something else,” he says slyly, and Rey chuckles.  “He’ll be ready to touch ground as soon as your platoon is spotted.  Which is why I insist you reconsider your course of action to attend this meeting.”

“No dice,” she says, and he rolls his eyes.  “We’ll touch down on Coruscant – we have backup waiting in the skies.”  She doesn’t indulge an exact location, and it doesn’t pass Ben’s notice, she realizes.  “Our meeting with the Queen shouldn’t last more than a few hours, according to Poe and the General.”  Ben nods.  “As soon as we have some type of agreement, we’ll take our leave.”

“You truly believe it’ll be that easy?”

“Well I did,” she admits, sitting up a bit straighter, tucking her thumbs into her fists.  “Until you showed up here like a ball of tension and basically told me your army was coming to kill my friends.”  Ben winces at her word choice, but she refuses to back down.  In her eyes, he has the ability to end all of this, and he’s wielding that power with little regard for how it’ll affect the rest of the galaxy.

“It’s not that simple,” he replies to her thoughts, and she pulls back, trying to shield him from them.  Aware that they’re not always the nicest when she has to differentiate between Ben and the Supreme Leader.  “I don’t just have complete control over an army, Rey.  You have to understand that.”

“What’s the point of the fancy title, then?” she demands, and he sighs, running both of his hands through his hair, fisting them at the nape of his neck as he tries to think of a response.  His thoughts are moving at a million miles an hour, so fast she can’t keep up.

“The title was an ego stroke for Snoke,” he says.  “It’s meaningless.  As much as I wish this was a pyramid I could lord over, it’s not.  My brief respite with you only proved that.”  She’s staring at him, willing him to continue.  After a moment, he finally does.  “The First Order is like a machine.  I am a gear – perhaps larger, but mostly indistinguishable from every other gear working this contraption.  My removal negates some processes, but ultimately, the machine doesn’t just stop because you took out a single piece.  And eventually, if my gear is removed, someone will step up and take my place.”

“So we have to find a way to destroy the entire machine,” she says slowly.  He looks up at her, his eyes wide with disbelief.  “Throw a wrench in it somehow, so the whole thing falls from the inside out.”

“My allegiance has never lied with the First Order, but you have to realize how bad of an idea that is,” he says.  She gives him a confused look, and he realizes that no, she never knew.  “I was committed to Snoke.  The First Order just came with that position.”

“But the power,” she begins, and he grits his teeth, his anger fighting its suppression within him.

“I don’t give a damn about the power!” he stresses, his voice filling the small room so completely.  She pulls away, watching him as he battles himself, the dark side in him trying so hard to swallow the light.  She wonders what he would look like to her if she meditated in that moment.  She knows there wouldn’t be the balance she had seen aboard the Upsilon – he changed so fast and so much.  Would she see more dark?  Or more light?

“I’m sorry, Ben,” Rey says after a moment.  Because there doesn’t seem to be anything else to say.  He glances at her, then looks away, staring into his lap.  They were falling back into that pattern they’d developed on Tatooine, where he’s trying to keep his anger at bay, so it comes out in short bursts.  “Look at me.  Please.”

He does, and she takes his face in her hands, pulling him to her.  She can practically taste his conflict on her lips as she kisses him.  He pulls back after a moment to look at her.

“Rey, destroying the First Order would mean taking out the only government in the galaxy.”

“They did that before, and the New Republic rose,” she contradicts, but he’s shaking his head.

“How well did that work out for them?”  She has no good response; she witnessed the destruction of the New Republic from Takodana.  Would there ever be an end to this cycle?  The push and pull of light and dark – the Sith, then the Jedi, the Republic, the Empire, the New Republic, the First Order.  Everything was out of balance.

And then, right in the middle of all of it was Rey and Ben, fighting against the push and pull of their respective sides.  Coming together as everything around them tried to rip each other apart.  Like two stars circling each other, inevitably drawn in by the gravity of the other.  Eventually coming together in an explosive stellar collision.  Forming a new galaxy, out of reach of anywhere else, hidden away from everything and everyone else.  She wondered how long their shields would hold, until they were forced to try and tear one another down as well.

“Never,” he answers, moving in to kiss her before she can say any more.  He presses her back down into the bed, moving to hover over her as he deepens their kiss.  Her head was swimming, so full of his scent, his hands, his skin as it ran over her body.  They were wrapped up in each other, creating a bubble where only the two of them existed.  Her hands wrapped around his shoulders, one running lightly through the soft tresses of his hair as the other gripped the sculpted muscle of his back.

He pulls away with a gasp, giving them both the opportunity to breathe.

“Sleep,” she wills him, and he nods.  She hears him kicking his boots off, hears the _clunk_ as they hit the floor, and she’s tempted to look down, see if she can see them or if they disappeared into his side of the bond, but she doesn’t want to ruin the illusion of his presence.

He rests his face in the crook of her neck, wrapping his arms around her as they shuffle under the blankets.  She has her cheek pressed against the top of his head, running a soothing hand through his hair as his breathing evens out.

It takes mere minutes for him to fall asleep, his exhaustion finally overtaking him, and she only hopes she stays with him long enough to stave off the nightmares.  During his time away, she was awoken on more than one occasion by his sudden terror through the bond, but he was closed off to her otherwise, and she couldn’t reach him enough to stir him from his fretful sleep.

Her mind refuses to slow down and join him in his slumber, so she lies awake, brushing his hair with her fingers, until he disappears a few hours later.  As soon as he’s gone, she takes a shaky breath, her eyes pricking with tears that she blinks away.

“It’s temporary,” she reminds herself aloud as she sits up.  She pulls her boots over, lacing them up, noting that Ben’s were nowhere to be found, and she finds that she’s slightly disappointed.  As though he could leave a piece of himself behind when he left.

But she has a piece of him already, crumpled at the foot of her bed.  She picks it up, folding his cloak carefully and tucking it beneath her mattress.  She doubts anyone could trace it back to Ben if they found it – except maybe Leia – but she keeps it safe regardless.

Padding out of her room, she makes her way into the conference area.  As she suspects, Poe is there.  He’s rifling half-heartedly through a datapad, his eyebrows up in surprise when she walks in.

“You’re up early,” he says, stifling a yawn.  “Or late.  I’m not sure which.”

“I think we’re at that awkward time where it’s a mix between the two,” she responds, sitting next to him at the conference table.  He’s got an earpiece in, waiting for any transmissions, she assumes.  “So, I’ve been thinking,” she starts.

“Dangerous,” he says sarcastically, and she shakes her head.

“Coruscant is bound to be swimming with First Order patrol and sympathizers, right?”  He nods his assent at this hypothesis.  “So, if the Queen of Naboo is expecting us, no matter how tightly this secret is wrapped, do you think word would have gotten around to any Order sympathizers?”

“I’m not sure,” Poe says, stroking his chin thoughtfully.  “Not unless they’ve infiltrated the Senate, but I think the destruction of Hosnian Prime is still too new for something like that.”

“Unless Snoke had them there prior to that,” she points out, and Poe thinks for a moment.

“You think?”

“You don’t?” she counters.  His eyes are widening slowly as he contemplates this, as though it hadn’t even crossed the threshold of his mind.  Which, it probably hadn’t.  Poe was really great at thinking on his toes when he was strapped into an X-Wing.  Not so much at any other given moment.

“What do we do?” he asks after a moment.  “The Queen is expecting us tomorrow; if we don’t show up—”

“So we go today,” she answers simply.  “If the Queen is expecting us tomorrow, I’m sure anyone in the Senate who is in contact with the First Order is also expecting us tomorrow.  Showing up a day early—”

“Might buy us enough time to get in, negotiate, and get out undetected,” Poe finishes, and Rey beams at him.  To say she missed this would be a gross understatement – bouncing ideas off Poe and Finn had been half the fun of their missions.  Brainstorming the best courses of action, deciding who stayed and who went, who manned the ships and the gunners.  It was always relieving, being part of a trio that was smart, resourceful, and resilient.

“Can we take your freighter?” Poe asks after a moment.  “I checked it yesterday after you flew in – it’s not marked, no one knows we have it, and it’s definitely not trackable.”

“I figured we would.”

“I’m going to go wake everyone up,” Poe says, standing and ripping the earpiece off his head.  “You go start loading up the freighter.  Lando’s ship should already be primed for the fleet, but I want to make sure we’ve—”

“Got it,” Rey says, standing as well.  They walk out of the conference room together and take off in opposite directions – Rey running straight for her quarters.  She dresses in her clean black and tan robes as quickly as possible.  Her duffel is on the floor still, but she only picks it up to rifle through it until she finds Obi-Wan’s multitool, shoving that into her hip pouch.  From there, she dons her holster and the blaster Han gave her.  Last, she grabs her lightsaber off her desk, where she’d thrown it after an exhausting practice the night before.  She unlocks the two hilts, putting both on her left side as she pulls Ben’s cloak from beneath her mattress, folding it over her arm.

She decided it was her good luck charm, though it had offered her no proof.  But it was infused with Ben’s Force, drenched in it completely, despite the nights she’s spent wrapped in it.  Plus, it was big enough to completely conceal her face, if she needed to disguise herself through Coruscant.  Her face was vastly more recognizable than Poe’s or Finn’s, or especially Rose’s.

Taking a moment, Rey looks around her quarters, and the Force urges her back to her desk.  She grabs her duffel off the floor, grabbing the Jedi texts and shoving them into the bag.  Without thinking too much about it, she grabs her spare clothes from the shelf next to her ‘fresher, then goes into the ‘fresher itself, gathering her bathing supplies.

All at once, her whole life is in this duffel.  Shouldering it, she takes one last look at her barren quarters, where she’d spent so many restless nights, sitting on her bed, scouring the Jedi texts, working at her desk to rebuild her lightsaber.

With a shuddering breath, she turns away, making her way into the hangar to load up her the L19, her shaking hands making it slightly harder to load up fuel reserves and ration packs for her crew.

Poe, Finn and Rose all run out as she’s trying to rewire the cannons in the rear, trying to fix whatever it was the Abednedo had failed to do.  But everything seemed in perfect working order, save for one stripped wire.  She reached back, grabbing a conduction tape and a spare wire, wrapping the two around each other before twisting them around the exposed wire.

“Are we ready?” Finn calls as Rey dangles precariously off the back of the launchers.

“I’m a bit busy,” Rey responds as she finishes up, and she feels the missiles hum to life with electricity after a moment.  “No way it could be that easy,” she says, mostly to herself as she gets up.

BB-8 is rolling up the ramp behind Poe, followed by Finn and Rose, and Rey swings herself down, taking up the rear.

Already going through the preflight checklist, Poe barely spares her a glance as she sits in the copilot seat.  Finn and Rose are making sure the ration packs and fuel reserves Rey grabbed are stored, then strapping themselves into the spare seats.

Rey clicks her duffel to the back of her chair with Ben’s cloak hanging over it before she starts her own checklist.  A heavy feeling is settling in her chest as the ship thrums around them.  She glances out the transparisteel viewpoint, watching as Resistance fighters run this way and that, loading up and boarding the huge Alsakan-class starship.  They’re loading up X-Wings into the ship’s hangar.

The Force whispers against the back of her neck, making it prickle, and she is forced to come to terms with the fact that she’ll never see this base again.

Before Rey can make any more observations or commit anything else to memory, Poe is maneuvering the ship out of atmo.  Rey reaches over automatically and flips the hyperdrive switch, watching as the stars speed up and streak by.  He punches in the coordinates for Coruscant as Finn and Rose unstrap themselves from their seats.

“Poe told us a bit about what you think is going on in Coruscant,” Rose says after a stretch of silence.  She and Rey had moved into the kitchen area, Rey holding a warm mug of caf in her hands – from the box Ben had given her, though she’d not told Finn or Poe that as they sipped on their own drinks.  “That wasn’t something any of us thought about, which is a little embarrassing.”

“I thought about it,” Finn interjects, blowing lightly into his mug to cool down the hot liquid.  “I don’t remember hearing anything about First Order infiltration of the Senate or the New Republic when I was stationed aboard the Finalizer, but it would make sense.  Especially for Hux.  That piece of bantha shit was all about secrets – him and Phasma both.  I wouldn’t be surprised if even Snoke didn’t know about any potential spies.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Poe says.  “Hux was essentially Snoke’s rabid lapdog.  There’s nothing that General did the former Supreme Leader didn’t know about.”

“Do you think that holds true for the current Supreme Leader?” Rose asks.

“Hux hates Kylo Ren,” Finn says, and Rey has to hold back her flinch at his name.  It was so easy to forget sometimes that he wasn’t just Ben to everyone else like he was to her.

No, she reminds herself.  He’s Ben _only_ to her.  No one else was willing to see it.

“I get the feeling Ren knows,” Poe says.  “Hugs is conniving, but he seems the type that looks for recognition wherever he goes.  He needs someone to tell him he’s doing a great job.”

“That’s true,” Finn sighs, slumping into the chair beside Rey.  “If Snoke knew before Rey killed him, then I’m sure Ren knew, too.”  They continued their musings, but Rey tuned it out, finding her way across the bond, hoping to reach Ben and let him know the plans have changed.

She feels his end of the bond thrumming with life, and she smiles to herself, realizing he’s just waking up.  She excuses herself to one of the crewman’s quarters, feigning exhaustion, and escapes just as Ben acknowledges her gentle nudges.  He opens the bond, and she takes a moment to look at him, his hair wild with sleep, his eyes heavy, as though he’d been awakened prematurely.

“Good morning,” she says simply.  He’s sitting up on the cramped bed of the crew pod, and she’s standing off to the side, her arms crossed casually over her chest.

"You didn’t sleep,” he grumbles, running his hands through his hair and shaking out the mess so it falls more naturally.  She acknowledges once more by how incredibly handsome he is, and he quirks an eyebrow at her thought.

She shakes the thought away and sits down on the very edge of the bed.  “There’s been a slight change of plans,” she says, and he looks at her like he can actually see her for once, suddenly significantly more awake.

“What kind of change?” he asks.

“We’re on our way to Coruscant right now,” she says, and he looks at her, a mild alarm in his eyes.

"As we speak right now?” he clarifies, and she nods.  “Rey, I won’t be there for another day.”

“Neither will the rest of the First Order,” she says.

“And you think the acolytes on Coruscant won’t attack you even if the First Order isn’t there for backup?” he retorts, and she can feel the anger starting to seep into this mind.  She puts a hand on his arm, her thumb stroking the inside of his wrist.  He takes a slow, deep breath.

“Besides,” she continues, pretending he didn’t say anything.  “If something does happen, I need to be there to protect my friends without the looming possibility that you’ll come and scoop me out and leave them to die.”

“Is that why you’re doing this?” he asks, exasperated.  “To make sure you can protect your so-called ‘friends’?”  She looks at him like he’s crazy.

“That’s literally what I’ve been trying to do this entire time,” she retorts.  He pinches the bridge of his nose, sighing deeply, but his hands are shaking with his barely-concealed anger.  “Ben, please understand.”

“I don’t,” he spits back.  “I don’t get how you would willingly put yourself in danger for those people.  They don’t care about you.”  Something twists in her stomach at his words, and she feels tears spring into her eyes.  She can’t tell if her sudden anger is her own or if she’s feeding off his, but she stands up, facing him with her hands fisted at her sides.

“Take it back,” she says, gritting her teeth.  He stares up at her, eyes wide.

“What?” he asks, bewildered by her abrupt shift in emotion.

“You said they don’t care about me, and it’s not true.  Take.  It.  Back.”  Something clicks in his mind, and he stands, as well, staring her down, prone to using his height as an intimidation tactic.  As though she could feel threatened by him anymore.

“No,” he snarls, finally freeing his rage.  “Those people don’t give a damn about you, Rey – you’re nothing more than an extension of the Skywalker legend.”

“You don’t get to make accusations like that, _Supreme Leader_ ,” she hisses back.

“At least I know what I am,” he retorts, his voice low and menacing.  She rears back, poking a finger into his chest.

"Take it back, Ben Solo,” she says again.  “They came for me when I had no one else; they became the family I never knew I could have and have worked tirelessly to make sure I stay safe.  Those are my _friends_.”  Her tears are so close to spilling over, and she’s afraid to blink, afraid that’ll be the breaking point.

“Are they?”  He steps closer to her, letting her finger dig into his chest.  “Or are they using you?  Suddenly letting you traverse the galaxy after months of being grounded?  You think it’s a coincidence that General Organa is just letting you go off, right when the Queen of Naboo is finally willing to talk to the Resistance?”  He’s leaning in closer to her, his face twisted in an angry snarl, and she’s trying desperately to keep her composure.  She’s shaking her head.

“What do you mean, ‘finally’?”

“Do you truly believe this is the first time the Resistance has tried to get the support of Naboo?”  Ben takes another step closer to her; they’re nearly chest to chest.  “And, until _you_ come along, until you run off, train with Skywalker, become a Jedi, the answer was always no.  They weren’t willing to risk the repercussions of the First Order until they thought that the Jedi were coming back.”  He’s shaking his head, but he doesn’t take his eyes off her, even as her own spill over with those traitor tears.  “You’re nothing more than a bargaining chip.”

“Stop it,” she hisses, not bothering to wipe away her tears.

“Not until you accept it,” he retorts.

“You don’t get to decide that for me!” she nearly shouts, clenching her teeth, trying to remain aware of the ship’s passengers.  “You don’t get to pretend you’re so much better than them or try and convince me of something so profoundly _wrong_!”

“Is it wrong?” he asks, suddenly collecting a calm he hadn’t had a moment ago.  She can feel her jaw shaking, her teeth clenched together so tightly she wonders distantly if they’ll break under the pressure.  Her whole body is on edge, her muscles flexed against the stress of his words, as if she can physically repel them.  She wants to grab him, shake his shoulders, throttle him until he admitted that he was lying to her; he _had_ to be lying.  “Would you honestly put it past any of them to use your skills, your gifts for their own gain?”

“Stop it!”  She can feel her entire being shaking.  “They wanted to keep me safe!”

“You’re a tool, Rey,” he says, the venom in his voice laced so deeply she feels it cut down to her very core.  And she can’t tell if it’s because he’s angry at her… or for her.  “And what’s worse, you made yourself a tool, because you didn’t think you had another option.  Because you convinced yourself that they valued you as a person.”

“STOP IT!” she shouts, shoving his chest, and he grabs her wrists in a vice grip, holding them at his sides.  It doesn’t hurt her, but it’s uncomfortable, and he only tightens his grip as she attempts to wrestle herself free.

“Admit it,” he says, so calmly she can almost convince herself he sounds sweet.  He leans closer, their faces only inches apart.  “Admit it.”  And the anger is too much, too deep.  And Ben is far too close.

“Let me go,” she says, her voice cracking with defeat.  He stares at her for a moment, searching her eyes, then releases her wrists.  She takes a step back, and he follows her, reaching up to wipe her tears away, and she smacks his hand.  “Don’t touch me,” she hisses.

He takes a slow breath, then shakes his head, looking away.

“You’ll come to accept the truth soon enough,” he says, leaning forward to brush his lips lightly against her forehead.  She moves to shove him away, but he’s gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my lovelies!
> 
> Happy Friday to all! Unless it's not Friday where you are, then I apologize, and happy other day of the week!
> 
> Here we find Ben reverting back to his ways, and I know some of you might be like, "But Trish, he made so much character development, he was coming so far, why is he being dumb again?"
> 
> To put it in layman's terms:
> 
> The boy's dumb, kids.
> 
> Also, without Rey and the Force of Ahch-To to balance him, Ben's learned behavior over the past however many years isn't going to just disappear over the course of a week, y'know? He's still gonna be that cynical asshole. He didn't magically change his entire personality just because he got laid and went on a honeymoon to his uncle's old cabin in Ireland.
> 
> Don't worry, though - Rey isn't going anywhere just because he yelled at her. Or I guess, mostly, she yelled at him. She still cares about him.
> 
> I'm getting questions about Rey's contraception plan, or if there's gonna be a Reylo baby, and I could have SWORN I added the part but I guess I just thought about it in the shower a lot and never wrote it.
> 
> So, basically, after Rey got back to Barkhesh and talked to Leia and cried about Ben, she snuck into the med ward, took the space nerd equivalent of Plan B, and got an birth control implant. Someone even said something like, "Ben's smarter than that, he should know better!" But you really think our nerdy Supreme Leader isn't going to shrug off the consequences?
> 
> "Well, at least if she gets pregnant I'll get to see her again."
> 
> The boy's dumb.
> 
> ANYWAY!
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy this chapter - it's mostly Ben and Rey being dumb, because, again, years of learned behavior, socially awkward children, all that. I love my space nerds, though.
> 
> Ask me questions! Leave me comments! Tell me what you liked, what you didn't like; all that! Leave me KUDOS so I can feel better about myself!
> 
> I love you all! See you on Tuesday!


	27. in which the one space nerd is still mad at the other one and he just has to deal with it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, the stripped version of Tribulation by Matt Maeson pairs well with this chapter.

Ben stares at the space Rey occupied for much longer than necessary, until he realizes she’s not going to reappear.  He has to stop himself from using his wall as an outlet to his anger, instead grabbing a spare tunic from his drawer and yanking it harshly over his head.  Perhaps he was too hard on her, but she needed to understand the truth – none of the Resistance, especially Leia Organa, had any concern over her well-being.

She was the only well-polished tool in a rusted, broken down machine.  The only thing the Resistance had left to use as leverage.  Unless they could get the support of Naboo and its allegiances, their numbers would never be high enough to take on the First Order in a true, no-holds-barred battle.  No matter how many victories they won, capturing the First Order fleet, removing every corrupt officer from power and re-instating the Republic wouldn’t come to them.

Not without a semblance of hope, of restored balance.

Rey adamantly disagreed with anyone who called her a Jedi, even Ben himself, and now he knows he should have agreed with her.  Perhaps if he’d helped instill that modesty, she wouldn’t be running off on a suicide mission to Coruscant.  Maybe she wouldn’t have returned to the Resistance at all.  They had nothing for her – she admitted that herself, just not in so many words.

He felt partially responsible, as though he should have been able to foresee what General Organa was going to do next.  Naboo was blaringly obvious to him now, when it was far too late.  Leia’s distress signal had been traced to a dozen Resistance sympathizers in the Outer Rim – and Naboo.  And it had been ignored.  Lost in the endless number of transmissions that system receives without a second thought.

Until word got out that Luke Skywalker took on a new apprentice.  That Luke Skywalker returned from the smoldering embers of his humiliation, rising like a phoenix to take on Kylo Ren, to let the Resistance escape.  Not until everyone saw that Luke Skywalker still believed in the Resistance.

It was never Leia the Senate believed in – that’s why they were so quick to cast her out, as soon as word spread that she was the daughter of none other than Darth Vader.  But that same folly was immediately forgiven in Luke Skywalker, the legend who destroyed not one but two Death Stars; who faced down the Emperor, removed him from this throne, and saved Darth Vader’s lost soul.

The man who brought about the return of the Jedi religion, who journeyed the galaxy searching for ancient artifacts, who helped rectify the Empire’s contingency plan after the death of Sidious.

Ren clenched his gloved hands into fists, stalking out of his chambers.  The argument across their bond had left him in a particularly bad mood; she hadn’t even wanted him to _touch_ her, despite it being the only reprieve he got from the perilous hells that was being the Supreme Leader.  And he’d made her cry, for which he felt awful; but it was too late now, and he refused to apologize.

She meant nothing more to them than a title, a symbol.  He knew better; he’d been raised to believe he’d one day be that same symbol, only to be cast aside, nearly murdered, as soon as anything other than light became visible within him.

He was terrified she’d befall the same fate.

Rey would see.  He’d make sure of it.

 ...

Hux was making his rounds in the hangar, overseeing training squadrons of his most recent Stormtrooper classes, watching with a datapad poised in hand, ready to mark any and every mistake he saw.  This was a newer practice – ever since FN-2187 defected, Hux hoped to stop any and every possible mistake in his midst before it arose.  Still, it was a time-consuming process, and Ren knew he could find Hux here if he wasn’t on the bridge.

His face was scrunched into a sneer, and Ren wondered what trooper in particular had caused such a look of disgust.  He followed Hux’s eyes, finding the hiccup almost immediately – one of the soldiers was just a half-second slower on every command than any of the others.  Ren closed in, and he could feel the fear and tension rolling off that particular trooper in waves; she knew what reconditioning consisted of, had been through it on more than one occasion, and was horrified when she realized she couldn’t quite catch up.  She knew she’d have to go through it once more.  She was already imagining the pain, the anguish; it caused her to misstep.

“TL-5732,” Hux barked, and the girl’s back straightened, immediately ceasing her conditioning training as Hux approached.  The rest of the soldiers stepped out of the way, resuming their training seamlessly as Hux made his way through the throng of white-armored bodies.

The General circled the girl like a bird of prey, taking in her height, her physical build, reading her datafile on the pad in his hands.  He clicked his tongue disapprovingly, and Ren noted that the girl’s hands were shaking almost imperceptibly.

After a couple of impregnable minutes, Hux typed a command swiftly into his datapad.  “You are to report immediately to Captain Charmaine for reconditioning,” he finally stated, and the girl gave a swift salute, as though she were thanking him for causing her so much physical and emotional turmoil.  She turned on her heel after a half-second, snapping her wrist down and making her way out of formation, walking toward Charmaine’s sector.

Ren was left with a dissatisfied taste in his throat, and he swallowed around it as he made his way toward Hux.  The Stormtroopers all noticed his approach simultaneously and snapped a salute, as though they’d rehearsed it a million times.  It caused a feeling of displeasure to roll through him when Ren realized they probably had.

“Supreme Leader,” Hux said as Ren closed the distance.

“General,” Ren responded, his eyes flicking to the conditioning soldiers.

“Ah, yes, this is the platoon we will be deploying on Coruscant,” Hux answered the unasked question.  “Our newest training class, but our most elite in a long time.  This is the class Phasma was "Is that why one of your students needed to be reconditioned?” Ren asks.  He watched as Hux physically bristled, then took a deep breath through his nose.

“TL-5732’s reprogramming should be exemplified, Sir,” Hux remained stoic.  “She is the epitome of our cause – proof that we will not settle for anything less than perfection.”

“What is our estimated time of arrival for Coruscant?”  Ren is in no mood to have this mitigating conversation with his General, noting that they were little more than a waste of time.  It could be fun, at times, to push the squirrely man’s buttons, but now was not one of those times.

“We’ll not be landing on Coruscant, Sir,” Hux reminds him, his voice barely giving way to his nervousness at being reprimanded.  “Our ship will stay off planetside—”

“An hour away,” Ren finishes, pinching the bridge of his nose.  “I remember the specifics, General.  Perhaps you need me to repeat the question?”

“No, Sir,” Hux says immediately, his hand automatically twitching toward his throat.  Kylo Ren was not a fan of repeating himself.  “We should be within scouting distance of Coruscant approximately this time tomorrow, Sir.”  Ren looks out the hangar at the stars as they streak by the Ascendancy, his heart twisting uncomfortably in his chest.  While he wasn’t sure where Rey was coming from, he could assume she wasn’t far away – they could travel the distance within a day, it seemed.

“What happened to the voluntary soldiers meant to join our expedition?” Ren asked, finally noting that they weren’t present.

“They were deployed prior to our departure from the Outer Rim,” Hux admits.  “I didn’t think this would be an issue – they are more apt to blend into their surroundings than my troopers.”

“They’ve already landed on Coruscant?” Ren asks smoothly, but his heart is hammering in his chest.

“Yes, Sir,” Hux says, clearly hoping for an ego stroke.  Ren wouldn’t give it to him.  He nods his assent, then turns on his heel and stalks out of the room.  His anger had bled way to worry – Hux was absolutely right.  The voluntary army he’d implemented was designed to blend in – it was half the reason the idea worked so well.  They were trained to keep their identities as First Order soldiers a secret, keep their Order-issued blasters and batons hidden within the casings of more common weapons.  Something that wouldn’t draw attention if seen on a busy street.

Coupling that with the fact that Ren’s research hadn’t drawn him any closer to Hux’s rat in the Senate made the Force around him tense with absolution.  Rey would be in far more danger than either of them initially thought.  His stress rippled through his body, and he knew immediately that he needed an outlet.

Already being in the hangar, the training chamber was only a few floors beneath his feet, and the lift took him there swiftly.  The various pairings and trios of Troopers broke away immediately as soon as he entered; they were all well-aware that the Supreme Leader preferred to train completely alone.  Which was no real issue – they all saw it as a break from formal orders.  They had the ability to lounge around for the hours Kylo Ren spent exercising his body, and no superior officer could tell them otherwise.

Ren brushed against their minds as they departed, whispering strong words they’d never be able to link back to him.

He grabbed a sparring saber from his personal weapon’s closet, smashed his numeric code into the training sequence board, and was immediately surrounded by half a dozen training droids.  They wasted no time in attacking, reminding him of the Tusken Raiders that had attacked him and Rey on Tatooine.  However, unlike the Raiders, Ren had no partner.

He grit his teeth against the onslaught of attacks, wrapped the Force around him like a shield, and put his dominant foot forward as he surged into battle.

... 

Emerging sometime later drenched in sweat and with a multitude of new wounds, Ren made his way into the medbay, haphazardly applying bacta patches over the three worst cuts the training droids had managed to land before he demolished them.  None of the wounds were serious, nor would they have been deadly in a real battle, but Ren is furious.  Rey was distracting him during battle, his thoughts moving to her every half-second, wondering if she was okay, whether she’d landed yet with her band of traitors.  The droids had read his distractions and converged.

It was humiliating, and he sighed as the bacta got to work, stitching his flesh back together.  They were surface enough that a med droid wasn’t required, but they buzzed around his head as he sat on one of the metal benches regardless, doing diagnostic scans and attempting to work on him.  He shooed them away, taking a minute to rest.

Physically exerting himself had helped him quell his anger, but his fretting over Rey had only worsened, weaving into his mind until it touched the core of his very soul.  He reached out, probing the bond, and was met with a wall of her absent-minded rejection.  Not the same steel doors she’d used to shut him out for so many months, but she was studiously _ignoring him_ across star systems.  He had to chuckle to himself; she was so incredibly headstrong, it was infuriating.  He pushes a little harder, feels her push back, forcing him out, and he shakes his head in exasperation.

He knew her well enough to know he should give her space, but he wanted to warn her about the voluntary soldiers, so he waits for the time it took him to get back up to his chambers, then pushed again.  He felt her walls come down, but only a little – enough to hear him, but she wouldn’t let him see her.

_WHAT?_ she all but screams into his mind, and he takes a moment to collect himself, to not devolve back into anger.

_Have you landed on Coruscant yet?_   His question is simple, but he feels her disbelief.

_You have the audacity to believe you have a right to the answer of that question?_ she retorts, and he pinches the bridge of his nose.

_Hux sent my voluntary soldiers ahead of time_ , he says, deciding to fill her in on the details without giving her the option.  _Take extra care – they don’t look like Stormtroopers, and the weapons they carry aren’t First Order-issued.  They’re dangerous people with guns who know you’re coming._

_Thanks,_ Supreme Leader _, but myself and the people who are using me can handle it._   And with that, she slams the connection back shut, and Ren screams his frustration, his fist swinging and colliding with the wall above his bed.  His knuckles buckle in protest, and he drags his hand away slowly, staring at it like it had betrayed him.

No.  He couldn’t react this way.  Rey may need him – and even if she decided to be angry with him for the rest of her life, at least he could be the calm she might need to keep her alive.  If she tried to bridge the bond and was met with his anger, she’d shy away – he _knew_ that.  And if she shied away, he wouldn’t know when she was in danger.

All he had to do was bide his time until they got to Coruscant.

Sinking to the floor and crossing his legs, Ben evens out his breathing, closes his eyes, and slips into the Force.

He sees Rey immediately, at the center of his universe, her exquisite bright light marred by those tendrils of gray smoke, more prominent now in her anger.  She was still moving at a blinding speed, and Ben lets out an unintentional sigh of relief.  She hasn’t landed yet.  He moves past her, trying not to focus on any one thing, just letting himself drift through the abyss.  She needed to be angry.  He told himself that was fine as he reached further into the web.

All at once, instead of feeling himself, feeling the energy around him, Ben was falling.  Nothing to grapple, his heart hammers in his chest as he careens into a void beneath the web.  He struggles, trying to push himself back into his own body, but it’s impossible.  He feels himself gaining speed, feels the Force as it rushes past him too fast for him to grasp.  He’s dropping away from his physical body, too quickly for him to remember where it was to begin with, and he has no idea what direction he’s moving.  The inky blackness of the Force is swallowing him whole, the tendrils of it wrapping around him, pulling him faster and faster.

And he realizes he’s not falling.  He’s being pulled somewhere, somewhere farther than he’s ever reached before, because he couldn’t.  This was out of his jurisdiction – the galaxy he knew has all but faded away.

He can’t even see Rey anymore.

Struggling still, trying to tear himself free of this intense dragging, Ben gasps as the web around him explodes into a brilliant nebula of starlight.  It’s nearly blinding – even brighter than Rey’s white fury of light, like he was thrown directly in the center of a star.

His eyes dance from one place to the next, looking desperately for an explanation, wanting to scream for help but his voice is lost, dying in his throat, so far gone he’s not sure it ever existed to begin with.  He’s losing himself in this all-consuming white, his body so far away he can’t remember how it looks, how it feels to have flesh.

_“Ben,”_ a voice says in the distance – but he doesn’t recognize it, barely remembers what a voice is.  He zeroes in, trying to find the intrusion within the light, and sees the most distant speck of a shadow.  He tries to move toward it, but it’s too far, and he’s floating.

It realizes his intention and comes to him instead, suddenly enveloping him in an unfamiliar Force signature, a fiery mix of beauty and pain, so all-consuming he tries to shield himself from it.  Because the beauty is so massive, so incredible, he can’t look at it; and the pain is so vast and endless, he feels like he’s falling into darkness again.

Somehow, perhaps because the thing insists, or perhaps because he has no choice, he stays in the middle.  Where the black and white converge, where he’s wrapped up in an all-encompassing gray bubble, protected from the beauty and the pain.

He still can’t see anything else, can’t understand what’s happening, and he’s lost for a moment in the current of this Force.  It’s almost… rocking him, as his mother used to do, when he was still small; when the nightmares got to be too much, and the voices wouldn’t leave him alone.

He stares out into the endless smattering of dark and light and gray, trying to find a sense of purpose, when he realizes something.  He can’t see Rey – he’s lost, somewhere deep in the web of the Force, and he can’t see Rey.  He doesn’t know if she needs him, if she’s landed, if she’s in trouble, and he tries once more wrenching himself free from this hold.  He’d intended to stay on the edge of the web, not look too closely, until the thing surrounding him dragged him under.  He needed to be there if she needed him.

Something warm and real and _vibrant_ bursts around him, filling him with purpose and reason; endlessly rushing over him until the whole of it has found a way to seep into every nook and cranny in his skin, his soul.  Until it has nested somewhere deeper inside of him than he can comprehend.  But he can’t pay attention to that right now, because he needs to see Rey.

Somehow, the thing surrounding him almost seems to chuckle.

_“Fine,”_ it sighs, and Ben feels it seeping away.  _“We can talk later, kid.”_

Ben gasps back into his own body, automatically hurtling forward, panting on his hands and knees.  He’s still in his chambers, still in his clothes, but every time he blinks he can see the outline of the black and white and gray behind his eyelids.  His heart is thundering so fast and loud in his chest, it’s drowning out every other sound.

And Rey is there.

He looks up at her, kneeling over him, concern coloring her face, a hand poised to touch his shoulder, perhaps trying to wake him from his meditation, but was suspended in midair when he came to on his own.  And he can’t help himself.  He doesn’t even care if she’s still angry.  He wraps his arms around her midsection, pulling her to him.

She responds in kind, her arms snaking their way around his shoulders, a gentle hand brushing his hair back.

They don’t say anything, the aftershocks of his vision still vibrating through his body – and he can’t explain it, can’t begin to describe it, but he feels her in his mind.  She’s not digging, just looking for answers, and he gives them to her willingly.

“You keep having these immense Force visions,” she murmurs after a moment.  “I wonder when I’ll have mine.”  His shoulders shake in barely-suppressed laughter as he digs his fingers into her warm hips.  His lips find her neck, but she leans away, eyeing him.  “Nah-uh.  I’m still mad at you, Ben Solo.”

“Okay,” he breathes, resting his head where his lips had been.  She allows him this comfort, using his method and drawing lazy circles on his back in an attempt to soothe him.  They’re sitting awkwardly on the floor, his body half leaned over hers, both on their knees, but he doesn’t want to move.

 “You’re okay,” she whispers, and he can’t tell if she’s trying to soothe him or calm herself.  There’s a cadence of awe in her voice, though, so he thinks probably the latter.

“I’m okay,” he reassures her.  She pulls away after a moment, sitting back, and he lets her, despite the fact that he’s not ready yet.

She hears something from her end of the bond, looking in the direction of what he assumes is the door, before taking a deep breath.  “I have to go.”  He puts his hands on her knees, as though he can hold her there.  But he knows she’ll leave regardless, knows he can’t force her to do anything she doesn’t want to do – that was almost the first thing he learned about her, after taking her to Starkiller.  He tried to reach into her mind; he never expected her to reach back.

So he says, “Stay safe,” and lets her go.  Her fingertips trail against the side of his face as she stands, thumb running up the scar she gave him.

And then she’s gone.

... 

Hux barges into Ren’s conference room some hours later, once the after-effects of his vision have worn off, leaving him far too tired to deal with the General’s accusatory stare.

Ben had been sitting alone, filling out flight reports for the TIE fighters.  There was a prototype cannon he’d been contemplating adding to his Silencer, to beta the tech and decide whether it would be acceptable to add to all of the ships.

“Ren!” Hux roars, as though there was anyone else milling about that might mistake the direction of the General’s glare.  Tally mark.  Ben looks up lazily from his holoprojector, knowing precisely what this unexpected conference was about.  Hux dramatically slams his datapad down on the table.  “You’re _terminating_ my Stormtrooper program?!”

“Yes,” Ren answers simply, returning to his flight record, watching from the corner of his eye as Hux’s face begins purpling with seething hatred.

“Need I remind you, _Supreme Leader_ , that my programming sequence has taken _years_ to perfect and tweak to absolute refinement?”  Tally mark.

“And yet your perfect system turned out the very glitch that destroyed your most highly influential captain,” Ren retorts as he flips off his holoprojector, finally giving Hux his undivided attention.  The vein in the General’s forehead is popping, practically pulsating with every too-rapid beat of his heart.

“You and I both know very well that FN-2187 was an outlier in an otherwise unparalleled system!”  Hux slams his fist on the table.  “Not even the clone troopers of the Old Republic had the necessary conditioning to hold a candle to my organization!”

“And yet the implementation of voluntary soldiers has more than tripled support for the First Order around the galaxy,” he responds.

“My soldiers are far superior in tactical skills and survival than any of those low-life barbarians!”

“So perhaps their training needs to be, how did you word it, ‘tweaked to absolute refinement’?” Ren stares down the General, who isn’t too lost in his anger at Ren’s unexpected decision to feel the effects of his glare.  While the Stormtroopers were a preferable choice on paper, the manipulation and detainment of children had been leaving Ben’s mouth tasting foul.  Every time Hux spoke proudly of his latest classes, Ren ended up biting his tongue.  The coppery taste of blood coated his tongue on more than one occasion.

"I kept my mouth shut when you set the anti-slavery bill in motion, but I refuse to stand for this!”  Ren stands, using the full force of his height to become an imposing feature within the otherwise empty room.  He is well aware how to take up space, make himself look even bigger.  Hux pulls back, just barely, but enough for the both of them to take notice.

“If you refuse to stand, then you will kneel, General,” Ren spits the warning, watching with muted satisfaction as Hux’s eyes widen and a hand automatically twitches toward his throat.  But, after a moment, he hardens with resolve.

“I will petition a protest for this.”  Ren smirks.

“Good luck with that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my lovelies!
> 
> Ben is so freaking dumb, I swear to every god out there. But at least he's trying, right? Right??
> 
> He doesn't know what to do with his hands when Rey isn't around. It's kind of endearing, isn't it?
> 
> So, in my free time I'm sort of a bad artist but I like to paint, right? On like canvas and stuff, not on the computer. Is it weird that I'm sort of maybe doing some fan art for my own fanfic? It's not quite done yet, but would it be something any of you guys would be interested in seeing when it is? I mean, I'm gonna post it anyway but I can like, link it or something? I don't know lol. I don't even know if it's gonna be any good when it's finished.
> 
> ANYWAY!
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter!
> 
> Comment and let me know! Leave me kudos! I freaking love you guys - legit, over 700 kudos?? How the fuck??? The validation is real. I am craving it now, so leave me more, please. PLEASE.
> 
> I'll see you on Friday!


	28. in which a space nerd finds out a small snippet of truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, Love Like Ghosts by Lord Huron pairs well with this chapter.

Rey takes a slow breath, looking down at the place where Ben had kneeled before her just a moment ago, her fingertips lingering with the phantom warmth of his skin.  The memory of what she’d felt across the bond makes her heart constrict – he’d been so afraid.  She’s never felt that type of fear.  She ran to the crew cabin she’d claimed as her own and practically kicked down the doors to his mind – doors she wasn’t sure he’d closed himself.  At the center of his fear was _her_ , like he was screaming her name.  And when she’d gotten to him, he was meditating, but drenched through with sweat, not responding to his name every time she screamed it.  She was tempted to smack him – leftover vestiges of her anger – but she’d elected to try and shake him awake.

He’d woken on his own then, taking in a breath so deep she was surprised his lungs didn’t explode.  He fell forward, his mind practically dragging her into it, making her see what he couldn’t explain.  The vast, empty abyss beneath the web of the Force they were both so accustomed to exploring.  Drowning in the beauty and the pain of that Force signature Ben didn’t recognize, but Rey was afraid to admit that she did.  From a distant memory, somewhere so far away she couldn’t quite recall.

The knocking on her door came again, dragging her back to reality.  “Rey?  You okay?”  Finn asked from the other side, and she shook herself from the stupor of Ben’s memories.

“I’m fine,” she said, hitting the button to open the door.  His eyes were wide with concern.  He looked at her, then dared a look behind her, as though he’d see whatever it was she was hiding.  And it was almost a comical thought; she pictured her keeping Ben wrapped up in a blanket and tucked beneath her cot, like a pet she wasn’t supposed to have.  She smiles, and Finn smiles back at her, as though she’s trying to reassure him.

“Okay, well, we just docked,” he says, and she nods.  She’d moved her duffel into her cabin, and she digs through it to grab her scarf and poncho.  Then thinks better of it, grabbing Ben’s cloak from where it hung on the hook next to the door, draping it over her shoulders and pulling it around herself to hide her lightsaber.

“Where’d you get that?” Rose asks as she walks into the cockpit.  She was wearing a stretch-knit cap and a scarf that covered her mouth, but left her nose and eyes exposed, as well as a purple shawl Rey didn’t recognize.  Finn and Poe were also hiding their faces, and Rey pulled the hood of Ben’s cloak up to conceal her face.

“It was on this shuttle when I first got it,” she lies smoothly.  They all nodded, accepting her at face value, and she wonders if she can recall just how many times she’s lied to them since she first connected with Ben.  It makes her stomach twist uncomfortably.

_They don’t care about you_ , Ben’s voice whispers in her ear, making her anger spike once more, even though it’s nothing more than her own memory, feeding her lies.  He’d planted that seed of doubt in her head, because no matter how much lying she did, she knew he’d never lied to her.  And she could convince herself he was just grossly miscalculated.

But it bothered her.  He’d never been wrong before, not that she could recall.

Still, Rey took in each of their covered faces, then nodded once, indicating that they should head out.  If she was nothing more than a pawn, she could at least content herself with knowing that the three people surrounding her had no idea.

“Alright, I’ve got Leia on comm,” Poe says, plugging an earpiece behind his scarf as they descended the ramp together.  “I’m not going to have a continuous stream going, in case someone tries to intercept it.”

“We’re meeting the Queen in the Senate building,” Finn says.  Rose reaches up, hitting the button on the underside of the ship to close the ramp and lock it.  She tosses the sensor fob to Poe, who tucks it into his poncho.  “We sent word through a private line that we’d be arriving a day early, so I’m guessing she’s waiting for us.”

“Did you get a response?” Rose asks, and Finn shakes his head.

“We asked her not to reply, just in case the First Order has infiltrated the Senate and was looking for some kind of outgoing comm on a secure channel.”

They’d docked in the main shipping yard, and Poe paid parking dues to the man behind a booth.  Rey searched his mind quietly for a moment before they walked out of the hangar, making sure he had no ill-intent.  He’d been cheating on his wife, but that was about as interesting as the toll-taker’s life got.

Walking outside, Rey was suddenly overcome.

This place was _enormous_ , the sprawling city stretching out as far as the eye could see.  The buildings stood taller than anything Rey had ever seen in her life, dwarfing even the graveyard of half-buried Star Destroyers in the Jakku desert.  A million speeders whizzed overhead, a hundred million people passing by, and she realized she wasn’t out of place at all with a scarf wrapped around her face and Ben’s oversized cloak draping her shoulders.

Thousands of different alien creatures Rey hadn’t seen before walked in every which direction, each having a look of determination on their face, though some were smiling, and some were frowning.  They all had a purpose, a reason for being where they were at that moment.  Rey closed her eyes, feeling out across that web for a brief moment, seeing each and every signature flare to life within the Force, a billion stars all clustered on one planet.

It was almost overwhelming, and she didn’t realize she’d stopped moving until Finn took her hand, giving her that same concerned look he gave her before.

“You okay?” he asks, and she nods, still awed.

“There’s just so much,” she responds.  Poe and Rose are stopped a few feet ahead, and she watches Rose’s eyes drift down to her and Finn’s clasped hands.  Rey lets go of him immediately, under the pretense that he was doing anything more than keeping her grounded.

The way Rose felt about Finn was obvious to perhaps everyone on the base except Finn himself, even though he’d admitted that she kissed him after she saved his life on Crait.

“Finn, you realize what that means, right?” Rey had asked, genuinely excited for his newfound love interest, but he’d given her an endlessly sad look before shrugging and changing the subject.  She’d not realized the implications of such a gaze until just then, when she thought of Ben, and how holding his hand felt so much different, so much more natural than holding Finn’s.

Rey couldn’t help but take in their surroundings with every passing step, watching those towers as they grew closer and closer, blotting out the sun with their incredible spires that reached into the sky.  She craned her neck all the way back as they passed, weaving in and out of the foot traffic they passed, everyone else keeping their faces down, but Rey was too obsessed with the incredible city.

“It stretches the whole planet,” Poe comments after a while, and Rey looks at him with wide eyes.  “The city, I mean.”

“The _whole planet?_ ” she has to stop herself from screeching.  Poe nods, his eyes dancing with amusement.

“Why do you think they made it the capital?” he asks, and Rey looks around with newfound astonishment, unable to process the idea that the entire planet looked just like this.  “When we leave, make sure you watch our departure – it’s truly an incredible sight.”

“I guess I was a bit distracted when we flew in,” she admits aloud before she can stop herself.  Rose looks back at her, an eyebrow quirked, and Rey smiles sheepishly.

They approach the Senate building, and Rey takes note of the guards standing on duty around the perimeter.  She wonders how they’re going to get in, but Poe turns them down an unexpected alley about a block away, pushing them through the narrow crevice toward a small outcropping of apartment buildings.

He stops in front of an unmarked door and knocks three times, pauses, then knocks twice more.  After a brief moment, the door opens, revealing a young twi’lek man.  His green skin matches his green eyes so absolutely Rey is almost caught off guard – until his eyes zero in on her, and she watches his pupils dilate.  The look sends something crawling over her flesh and she has to stop herself from physically reacting to his eyes.  It feels like he’s trying to consume her.

He says something in a foreign language, and Rose responds in the same tongue.  Rey doesn’t understand, but they both say the word ‘Jedi’, and Rose looks at her knowingly.  The twi’lek also looks at her again, his eyes roving over her appraisingly.

“Take your coverings off,” he says.  “I’d like to see your face.”  Rey looks at him in disbelief, but Poe puts a comforting hand on her shoulder, silently urging her to do as they ask.  Something about this man seems off, and she can’t quite put her finger on the unsettling feeling roiling in her stomach, but she’d learned through trial and error on Jakku to trust her gut, even before the Force was a factor.  Or perhaps, she thinks for the first time, it was always there, guiding her.

She complies after a moment of silence, pulling down the hood of Ben’s cloak and unwrapping the scarf from around her face.  She looks at the twi’lek full on, noting the way his chest heaves as he takes a full breath.

“You truly are Jedi,” he says, shaking his head in awe.  “I didn’t think there were any left.  I can see the light in your eyes, your face.”

“She’s the last,” Finn responds for her, giving her a confident smile, his eyes crinkling behind the scarf.

“We’ve heard the rumors,” the man says in agreement.  “Luke Skywalker’s last living apprentice.  What an honor.”  He bows respectfully, and Rey can feel her cheeks coloring with embarrassment.  “Excuse me, I’m being exceptionally rude.  My name is Tharen, I am the Right Hand of her Majesty, Queen Brennisca of Naboo.”

“Perhaps we could have this conversation under cover?” Poe asks, and the man’s eyes widen, as though he’s appalled by his own actions.  He ushers the four of them inside.  They’re standing on a platform, barely the size of a closet, with walls on all four sides.  Tharen reaches behind Rey, pressing a button, and she retracts when his hand grazes her back.  The platform shudders to life, gives out a whining groan, and then begins descending into the bowels of the apartment building.

“I’m Rose,” Rose says as the lift takes them deeper underground.  “This is Finn, Poe, and Rey.”  She gestures to each of them, and Tharen nods knowingly.

“Yes, I’ve heard all about the Resistance team General Organa has thrown together,” he says with an affectionate smile.  “The mechanic-turned-hero,” he says, giving Rose a knowing look.  Her eyes widen, and she shakes her head in disagreement, but Tharen has already moved on.  “The rogue Stormtrooper – quite a feat, that is.”  The twi’lek man elbows Finn.  “The best pilot the Resistance has ever seen – I can only assume that includes Master Skywalker himself.”  Poe gives a charming smile.  “And, of course, the last Jedi.  The scavenger from Jakku.”  He turns his gaze to Rey, who promptly looks away, unsure of how she should feel about this man.  The Force brushes up against the back of her neck, causing the skin to break out in gooseflesh.

She doesn’t trust him, she decides, and the Force seems to relax around her, as though it’s relieved she’s come to such a decision.

The lift shudders to a stop, and the five of them step off.  As soon as their weight lifts, the platform ascends back into the ceiling of the hallway it’s taken them into.  It’s dark, lit only by a few lamps, spread so far between that the darkness practically swallows the floor.  Her three companions finally feel comfortable enough to remove the shrouds from their faces.

“This is quite a dank place,” Tharen says, the threads of an apology in his voice.  “Her Majesty is a big fan of walking amongst the people, but she can’t exactly slip out of the Senate building – I’m sure you saw the guards.  So, she disguises herself and uses this tunnel system to escape prying eyes.”  Tharen shrugs as he leads them into the darkness.  “Rumor has it, she’s not the first diplomatic leader to use these tunnels.  They were perhaps built so Senator Palpatine could run his underground Sith network beneath these streets.”  He pauses, then shrugs again.  “Or, they were perhaps used by Senator Amidala, so she could tryst with the unknown man who eventually impregnated her, just before her death.”  Another pause.  Another shrug.  “Or perhaps they were used by the original Jedi – there are rumors that one of the tunnels, the one that used to lead to the old Temple, in the center of the city, was walled off when Palpatine took office.”  He laughs then, though none of the other four do.  His words, so casual in conversation, seem to have a menacing undertone, and Rey is afraid she’s the only one that hears it.

He turns his back on the darkness, facing the four of them with an amused glint in his eyes.  Rey surmises that he must know these tunnels awfully well.  “They’re all rumors, speculation caused by people who don’t really matter.”  He turned back around, his lekku swinging nonchalantly as he turned a corner seemingly at random.

“The Queen is awaiting your arrival in her private conference room,” Tharen says after a few more minutes of silent walking.  The only sounds any of them hear are the echoing of their irregular footsteps, and the trip seems too long – hadn’t they only been a block away from the building?  Close enough for Rey to see the guards posted outside.

He turns another corner, and a set of stairs are built into the wall, looking as though they lead to nowhere.  He walks up them, then gives the same strange knock Poe had given before on the wall.

It cracks open, and Tharen pushes his way through.  The light is so bright, it takes Rey’s eyes a moment to adjust.

They exit the tunnels into a beautifully ornate conference room.  A long table takes up the vast majority of the room, an intricate gold color Rey immediately recognizes as mythra.  Older model Star Destroyers used it as a conducting agent in the hyperdrive chamber – it was incredibly valuable.  Rey immediately begins to wonder how much a table like this would be worth before she shakes the thought from her head.  It doesn’t matter anymore.  She wasn’t a scavenger.

The rest of the room is almost bland in comparison to the table – but only because none of it is worth as much to Rey.  The chairs surrounding it look as though they were carved from wroshyr trees from Kashyyyk, each one different and gorgeous.  The walls were hung with brilliant cream and gold tapestries, and against every wall was a huge vase, each one must have been some type of Naboo treasure, holding giant bouquets of alien flowers.

The room took Rey’s breath away.  She spared a glance at Rose, who had that same fascinated awe on her face.

Tharen takes a moment to assess them, then smiles.  “If you would have a seat, ladies and gentlemen, I will go get Her Majesty.  She’s anxious to meet all of you.”  He says ‘all’, but his eyes are very firmly locked on Rey’s as he speaks, and she feels that same uncomfortable shudder roll through her body.

He leaves, and the four Resistance members take to the chairs, Finn and Rose taking one side, Poe and Rey choosing the opposite.  She’s sitting across from Rose, whose face is twisted into a polite Poe seems relaxed beside her, and Finn looks as though he’s still taking in the room, eyes darting this way and that.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Rose says after a moment, and Rey nearly deflates, relieved she didn’t have to be the one to say anything.  “Something in the way that guy talks is… off.  I don’t trust him.”

“Seriously?” Finn asks, looking at her through narrowed eyes.  “This is the best chance the Resistance has to turn the tide.  We can’t back down now.”

“I’m not saying I want to back down,” Rose argues.  “I just…  I don’t feel good about this situation.  I feel like we’re being misled somehow.”

“I don’t know,” Poe says with a shrug.  “It seems like this guy’s genuine – he’s the one that told us to take this back entrance, instead of going through the front doors of the Senate building.  If we’d done that, we definitely would have been stopped by someone.”

"But can’t Rey use her Force powers to make it so the guards don’t see us?” Rose asks, and everyone turns to look at Rey.  She wants to collapse in on herself.

“I agree with Rose on this one,” she says, and her voice feels incredibly small.

“Well, look,” Poe says, double-tapping the comm in his ear.  “If anything happens, this thing is recording our conversations and sending them to Leia every fifteen minutes.  She’ll know almost as soon as something happens.”

Rey still isn’t convinced.  It took an awfully long time to travel those tunnels, and she couldn’t make out what direction they were heading.  She’s not totally confident they’re even in the Senate building.  She keeps these thoughts to herself, not willing to upset Finn and Poe or further Rose’s anxiety about the situation.

The two girls catch eyes across the table, and Rose nods, as though she’s exactly in Rey’s headspace.  Maybe their trains of thought are on similar tracks.

Rey doesn’t have time to dwell – Theran is back in the room, followed by an incredibly regal-looking young woman who is flanked by four guards on each side.  Each of the Resistance members stand as she enters, carrying an aura that demands respect.  She’s wearing the most immaculate and embellished robes, small crystals lining the sleeves and the skirts that clink softly together with each step, making the room around her pale in comparison.  Her face is painted a pure white, with two red dots on either of her cheeks and a red line down her bottom lip that reaches her chin.  Her eye makeup is dark, giving her a striking gaze as she makes eye contact with each of them.  They fall to Rey and pierce her straight to her core.

“Master Rey,” she says knowingly, and Rey stops breathing.  The young woman’s eyes don’t leave hers – there’s no possible way she’s any older than Rose or Finn, but the way she carries herself, the look in her eyes is so wise beyond her years.  Losing her words, Rey’s mouth gapes for a moment before she manages – just barely – to collect herself.

“Your Majesty, forgive me,” she says, taking a step back before bending her waist in a bow.  She suddenly feels incredibly informal, Ben’s too-big cloak, her scavenged clothes that could barely pass for a Jedi.

“I would never expect such refinement from an ill-trained Jedi whose prior occupation was scavenging,” the Queen responds, and though her words seem callous, Rey doesn’t detect any malice or anger in her voice.  She seems pleasantly surprised.

Standing at the head of the table, the Queen gestures widely, nodding her head in a subtle greeting before taking her seat.  The rest of the Resistance members follow suit, although each of them feels a bit awkward.  Leia was a princess, but she was still somehow just Leia to each of them.  Her presence commanded authority and respect, but the Queen of Naboo seemed to have the very world stop and start with each movement she made.  The regality with which she carried herself was lost on Leia Organa, it seems – perhaps because she’d never become queen, or perhaps because Alderaan had different practices.

“I am the Queen Brennisca of Naboo,” the Queen says, taking a moment to look at each of them.  “I’m pleased to make the acquaintance of each of you.”

“I’m Poe Dameron, First Commander of the Resistance fleet,” Poe says, swallowing as he says his full title.  As though he expects it to be underwhelming.  Brennisca nods at him.

“I’m Rose Tico,” Rose says, wringing her hands in her lap, trying desperately to maintain eye contact.  “I’m a maintenance worker.”  Rey can tell that she regrets the words as soon as they leave her mouth.

“I’m Finn,” Finn says.  “I have no last name, as I was formerly a Stormtrooper.”  The Queen’s eyes widen almost imperceptibly at this, and she puts a hand up to stop Rey’s words before she can speak them.

“You broke Armitage Hux’s conditioning?” Brennisca asks him, and Finn suddenly looks overwhelmed.  “Were you a glitch?”

“Um,” Finn responds, and Brennisca shakes her head.

“I’m sorry, how rude of me,” she says.  “Please, don’t award me an answer for such a foolish and imposing question.”  Finn looks somewhat relieved, but there’s still shock evident on his face, and as though he can’t get over any of what’s transpiring around him.  Finally, Brennisca looks to Rey.  She squirms uncomfortably in her chair, the wood groaning the slightest amount as she shifts her weight this way and that.  “And, we all already know of you, Rey of Jakku.  The last Padawan taken on by Master Skywalker.”

“I wouldn’t necessarily consider myself a Padawan,” Rey answers quietly.

“He entrusted you with his knowledge of the Jedi?”  Brennisca asks.  Rey wants to nod, but she doesn’t feel that it’s appropriate in such a time.

“He trusted me with his teachings in the ways of the Force,” she squeaks out.

“You were a Padawan,” Brennisca says simply.  “No matter how long or how short of time it was.”  Rey has no choice but to agree, but she looks away regardless.

“Your Majesty, if I may,” Poe begins, and Brennisca turns the full force of her gaze onto him.  He holds steady, refusing to be intimidated or shrink back the way the rest of them did.  “I’m sorry, but I am hoping this conversation intends on taking a more diplomatic course.”

“Yes, yes,” she says, waving her hand dismissively.  Rey takes the opportunity of her distraction to reach out to her with the Force, get an idea as to who this woman is, and she’s overwhelmed with the sheer amount of _honesty_ radiating from her.  Rey blinks a couple of times, the drastic personality differences between the Queen and her Right Hand suddenly brought to the forefront.

Rey realizes she can trust Brennisca.  If there is, in fact, a devious ploy in Theran’s plans, Brennisca is not a part of any of it.  Her eyes glance up to the Hand, only to find he’s already staring at her, eyes so intense they’re practically boring holes into her skin.  Her first instinct is to look away, but Rey holds fast, meeting his gaze, refusing to back down.

They stare at each other as Poe and Brennisca debate, until the corners of Theran’s mouth quirk, stretching across his cheeks, turning from an impassive expression to a terrifying smile.  Rey feels the Force brush against her, whispering a wordless warning in her ear, and she looks away.

“Master Rey, what are your intentions with your newfound Force abilities?” Brennisca asks, her voice a steady mask of calm, but the Force around her is jumping with excitement as she waits patiently for an answer.  Rey is pulled back into her own mind, looking at Brennisca.

“I’m not quite sure I understand the question,” Rey says, trying to shake off the horrible feeling in her gut that hit her like a speeder as soon as Theran smiled.

“Do you intend on passing on what Master Skywalker taught you?” Brennisca clarifies, and Rey rears back, the question coming as a surprise.  What an odd question to ask during a diplomatic negotiation.  Wasn’t the point to get their assistance, to help the Resistance?  But everyone else is staring at her expectantly, and she racks her brain, trying to find an answer.

_“They weren’t willing to risk the repercussions of the First Order until they thought that the Jedi were coming back.”_ Ben’s voice is back in her ear, whispering his truths, and her eyes widen as she runs over the implications of his sentence.

“I’m afraid I don’t have an answer to that question,” Rey says after a moment, and Brennisca sits back in her chair, the excitement that had just been bouncing around her Force suddenly replaced by disappointment.  “If you’re asking whether my intentions are to start a new Jedi Academy, my answer is much the same – I simply haven’t had the time to think about it.”

“I see,” Brennisca says, mulling over Rey’s answer for a moment.  “You’re asking assistance from my Naboo military – and I understand your need for such.  General Organa informed me that you’ve acquired the assistance of another army, as well.  Why is it so imperative you gain our supplies?”

“Despite our more recent accomplishments and acquisitions, we still lack the funds and the ships to accomplish an all-out assault against the First Order,” Poe answers smoothly.  Rey wonders distantly if he’d practiced this speech.  “Gaining your bravado and your technology could help the Resistance bridge the gap – we’d no longer have the shortage of ships and supplies we currently have.  We’d actually be back in this arm’s race.”

They debate awhile longer, going back and forth, as Rey sits, listening intently, trying to absorb all of this leadership knowledge.  Rose catches her eye every now and then as she fiddles with the Omotok medallion around her neck.  Rey doesn’t think the poor girl has relaxed since they stepped onto the platform – not that she blamed her.  Rey’s muscles were practically bursting, her fight or flight response vibrating like a livewire in her mind.  She wants to reach out to Ben, have him beside her, let him know the Queen’s interest in Rey starting a new Jedi Order, but then she’d have to admit that he was right about that one thing – and he’d insist she admit he’s right about everything else.

Which isn’t true.  Her friends cared about her, she could see it.  She could feel it.

One of the guards glances at the small holo-comm she’s wearing around her wrist, then quietly approaches the Queen, interrupting the middle of her sentence about gunners and warships with a light whisper in her ear.  The Queen’s eyes roll, and she stands.  The rest of the Resistance stands with her, the formal meeting quite suddenly coming to an end.

“I do apologize, I have some prior engagements I seem to have forgotten about.”  The Queen shakes her head, as if this is nothing more than an annoyance.  “If you don’t mind, I’d love to continue this conversation tomorrow.”  Rey sees Poe move from the corner of her eye, mouth opening to respond, to let her know they simply don’t have that much time, and Rey grasps his forearm.

“Yes ma’am,” Finn says instead, and Brennisca’s eyes dart between the two young men.

“Theran will show you to some private rooms,” she says after a moment.  “This entire wing belongs to me, free for my people to use when they’re passing through the city.  Some of the rooms are occupied.  So, your options are for two of you to bunk together in each room.”

“We appreciate your kind gesture,” Rose says, and the Queen’s mouth lifts in a barely-there smile.

“Wonderful, I’ll see you in the morning.”  She moves to leave, then whirls around, looking Rey straight in the eye.  “I would implore you to think more about reinstating the Jedi religion, Master Rey.  This galaxy could use that type of hope.”  And, with a ruffle of her cape, she exits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my lovelies!
> 
> We finally made it to Coruscant! And we meet Brennisca - and, just like Chrinda, I know she's an original character but I fucking love her. She's sassy for a queen. I tried to model her after a somewhat less refined Padme, which it didn't exactly work out but I still love her.
> 
> And ugh I hate Theran. Hated writing his character, that's why he comes off so awful and obvious.
> 
> ANYWAY.
> 
> Some political shit is going down, and Rey is just sort of caught in the crossfire, stuck between a rock and a hard place. Brennisca suggesting a new Jedi academy probably made her be like "Well, godsdamnit."
> 
> But trust me. It gets much worse.
> 
> I love you guys!
> 
> Leave me comments! Ask me questions! Leave me kudos! ALL the kudos, please, it makes me feel so fucking good about myself.
> 
> I'll see you on Tuesday!


	29. in which some stuff goes down with these space nerds because we're getting to that point in the plot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, Hold Back The River by James Bay pairs well with this chapter

Theran leads them through an ornately decorated hallway, similar in design to the conference room, and Rey is finally able to see out a window.  Based on the structure of the building, and its placement within the city, she accepts that they had, in fact, been taken to the Senate building.

She wonders if it might have been easier if they hadn’t.  Maybe then, they could have convinced Poe and Finn that something about this situation was dangerous.

“Rey and I will room together,” Rose suggests as Theran leads them through a series of hallways.  The doors on either side are separated by so much space, Rey has to wonder what could possibly be behind them.  Surely the rooms aren’t that big.

"Wonderful,” Theran says, glancing back at Rey.  He turns them down another hallway, taking them to the first two doors.  He unlocks the first, then hands Poe and Finn each a key card to access it.  Directly across the hall is Rose and Rey’s room – he unlocks it, hands them each a key card, and escorts them in.

It’s quite possibly the most incredible room Rey has ever been in.  They enter into the sitting room, decorated in that same cream and gold color scheme, but the plush couch and sitting chairs are a deep, vibrant crimson.  The tables are made out of ornate transparisteel, and off to the right is an eating area – a matching transparisteel dining table is surrounded by four crimson chairs.  There’s a refrigeration panel on the wall, next to a four-burner stovetop built into the polished gold-and-cream stone counters.  There are four doors on the opposite side of the sitting room.  Theran walks over as soon as Rose and Rey have both had the opportunity to gawk, opening each door.

“This is one of the bedrooms,” he says.  “We have a closet here, for extended stays; this is the ‘fresher, and this is the other bedroom.”  He opens the last door, then closes it, bowing deeply.  “You’re welcome to stay within this room, or go to your Resistance friends’ room, but we ask you don’t explore beyond that.”  He gives a remorseful look.  “Your presence within this building is our top priority secret, but we can offer you no personal guard to stand by and make sure you stay safe.”  With a light shrug, he takes his leave, and Rey and Rose look at each other.

"I do _not_ —” Rose starts, but Rey holds up a hand to quiet her as she closes her eyes.  Using the Force, she stretches out, urging it to see her intent.

She feels a light brush against her neck, urging her forward, and she follows the pull to the couch.  Bending down, she reaches beneath the gap between the floor and the base, her hand closing around something small and metal.

Rose gasps as Rey pulls out a small spy droid.  She takes out the multi-tool from her hip pouch as the thing squirms in her hand.  Popping off the back panel, Rey digs around for a moment, then pulls a single wire, forcing the droid to power down.

“They were going to spy on us,” Rose says breathlessly.  “Or, really,” she gives Rey a pointed look, “they were going to spy on you.  Which I don’t appreciate.”

"You’d rather they spy on you?” Rey asks with a smile, and Rose laughs.

“I don’t appreciate that they wanted to spy at all, but especially on you.”  She sits on one of the plush chairs, and her eyes widen.  “Oh, it’s so comfy.”  She bounces a couple of times as Rey sits in the chair opposite, sighing into the cushions.  Though Rey still wasn’t ready to relax, the chair offered soft support against her rigid back, and she sank into it willingly.  “I’ll bet the boys’ room is fine.”

"I’m sure you’re right,” Rey says, kicking off her boots and pulling her legs up onto the chair.  “However, we should check.”  She leans back, and Rose chuckles, also pulling off her shoes.

“Definitely,” she agrees.  “Maybe in… ten or twenty minutes?”  Rey nods, twisting her ankles, trying to relieve the soreness in her feet.  “I don’t trust that Hand of the Queen or whatever.”

“I don’t, either,” Rey agrees, taking a moment to push quietly across the bond.  She was met with impassive anger, though she could tell it wasn’t directed at her.  He nudges back after a moment, and Rey smiles to herself as she pulls away, letting him know it wasn’t the best time.

“What should we do?” Rose asks, and Rey sighs.

“I’m not comfortable staying here another day,” Rey confesses, and Rose nods her assent.  “However, it’s not Queen Brennisca I don’t trust.  It’s definitely her Hand.”

“He didn’t stop staring at you,” Rose says.  “And something in his eyes was… off.  He was looking at you like you were some type of prize.”

“I caught that,” Rey says.  She leans her head back with a sigh, craning her neck to stare up at the ceiling.  The tiles were all swirling creams and golds and crimsons, pulling the entire room together.  “However, negotiations are not complete, and I have the feeling I’m safer here than I would be at the ship.”

"We should tell Leia,” Rose says with a nod.  She stands up, slipping back into her shoes and padding across the room.  Rey watches until she disappears behind the door.  A minute later she comes back in with an excited Finn and a nonchalant Poe.

“Rey, did you see these rooms?” Finn asks excitedly, and Poe rolls his eyes.

“Did you contact Leia?” Rey asks, sitting up and ignoring Finn.  Poe shakes his head, sitting on the couch.  He pulls out his earpiece, then a small holo-comm, tapping in a number sequence.

A moment later, Leia’s face illuminates the room, her eyes wide.

“Negotiations over so soon, Commander?” Leia asks, and Poe shakes his head.

“The Queen had a prior engagement, so she had to cut the meeting early,” Poe answers.  He debriefs the General on everything discussed, passively mentioning Brennisca’s interest in Rey beginning a Jedi Temple and taking on Padawans of her own, which makes Leia purse her lips.

“So, I get the feeling we’ll be able to conclude everything with relative ease in the morning,” Poe finishes, and Leia nods.

“Is Rey there?” she asks after a moment, and Poe’s eyes widen.  He twists the comm so it’s facing Rey, who was sitting forward now with her elbows on her knees.  “Rey, how did you feel about all of this?”

“Well,” Rey swallows, tucking her thumbs into her fists.  “I certainly don’t trust the Hand of the Queen.”  Finn scoffs behind her, and Rey elects to ignore him once more.  “Something about him makes me uncomfortable.  Not to mention the fact that Rose and I found a spy droid in our quarters.”

“Wait, what?” Poe asks, but Leia seems to consider this.

Rose walks over, sitting on the arm of Rey’s chair so Leia can see the both of them.  “The Hand seems to have taken a special interest in Rey.  I’m not sure if it’s because of her title as the last Jedi, or if it’s something more, but he even creeps me out.”

Leia takes a slow breath, pinching the bridge of her nose, and Rey realizes where Ben inherited that trait from – how had she never put that together before?  It takes her breath away.  “Keep an eye on him, all of you – don’t let him get too close or get Rey alone.”  She puts a hand up to stop Rey’s interjection.  “I know you’re more than capable of taking care of yourself, but I can’t imagine there’s any evidence backing your accusation, and the last thing we need right now is to have your negotiations interrupted because you killed the Hand of the Queen and got war declared on us.”

“Alright,” Rey agrees.

“Have you thought about the Temple?” Leia asks, and Rey feels her eyebrows pinch together in confusion.

“General?”

“I’d meant to bring it up before you left, but with plans being pushed up a day, there wasn’t time,” Leia admits.  “Much of the galaxy presumes that your admittance of becoming a Jedi means you’ll continue the legacy.”  Rey stares at the holo of her Resistance leader.  Emotions are flurrying through her so fast she can’t keep up with them herself.

Was this all it was about, then?  Was she nothing more than a symbol?  The only remaining part of Luke Skywalker available to carry on his religion?  She wasn’t a Jedi – it wasn’t a title she took herself, rather one thrust upon her by those surrounding her.  Those she trusted.

Rey of Jakku, scavenger-turned-Jedi-turned-Jedi-Master-turned-Padawan-leader?  Would she ever have made that decision for herself, or was it simply assumed that, because she could use her mind to move rocks, she would just do it?

“I’m not a Jedi, General,” Rey finally responds.

“You will be,” Leia says simply.  “You have Luke’s training, his books, and now, his lightsaber.  You are his living legacy, Rey.”

Rey stands abruptly, catching the eye of Rose sitting beside her, then Finn, who had been standing behind her.  Ducking her head, she makes her way into the first bedroom, closing the door behind her.  Her chest feels like it’s going to explode, and she’s flittering through emotions so fast it’s making her own head spin.

That flurry of emotions has settled on a single one; anger.  She’s angry.  She’s angry because she’s being forced down a path she isn’t sure she wants to go down.  Everything she knows about the Jedi, has learned up until this point, has been so contradictory.  And the original Order spent centuries perfecting an ancient, dated religion, but it wasn’t perfect at all.  And it was demolished, torn apart from the inside out by a carefully cultivated plan and a Sith Master and Apprentice.  Similarly, Luke spent decades making himself the epitome of the Jedi, then took on a coupling of apprentices only to have it torn apart in a single night by an angry boy and his small band of followers.

How could she rightfully choose the legacy that seemed so inherently wrong?

She sits on the edge of the bed provided to her, hands clenched against her thighs in her lap.  She feels Ben’s worry across the bond, having felt her turmoil, and she effectively shuts him out.  Not willing to deal with any potential I-told-you-so’s.  Not willing to look at him.  Because she’s afraid that, if she does, she’ll fall apart, ask him to come get her, so they can find some remote corner of the galaxy to hide in.

She hears the voices of Finn, Poe and Rose outside of the door for a few minutes longer.  Then, a tentative knock comes.  Rey says nothing, trying to center herself, but she can’t even meditate.

Finn comes in anyway, looking at her with a mix of confusion and concern.  “You okay?”

“Besides the fact that my life seems to have been laid out for me, I’m fine,” she spits, and Finn sits beside her, setting a tentative hand on her knee.  She lets him comfort her for a moment, then she pulls away.

“Is this about the temple?”

"I just don’t understand,” she says quietly.  “The Jedi have been known throughout the ages for their _failure_ , even Master Luke thought so.  Why are they all so desperate to bring it back?”

“It gives them hope,” he answers simply.  “They think that having the Jedi back will restore some order to the galaxy.”  He gives her a smile, and she can’t help but smile back.  Finn was so warm.  “Luke didn’t really fail, he just got taken out by Kylo Ren.  I’m guessing they’re hoping you don’t.”

“He didn’t get taken out,” Rey argues immediately, before she realizes her mistake.  Finn looks at her awkwardly, and she sighs.  “It doesn’t matter.”

“Regardless,” Finn says after a moment.  “If you do decide to build a temple, I think it might become a beacon of hope, you know?”  Rey looks at him, narrowing her eyes.

“You think I should do it?”

“The Jedi aren’t failures, Rey,” he answers.  “They just had some missteps throughout history.  But they were the balance in the Force for thousands of years.”

"Were they?” Rey retorts, standing.  “The Jedi preach peace and harmony, do they not?  And yet, at the height of the Separatists Regime, they headed countless armies of Clone Troopers, all of whom eventually turned on them and caused the beginning of their downfall.”  She’s shaking her head.  “When I told Luke the Resistance needed him, he said it was time for the Jedi to end.  Maybe he was right, Finn.”

“You think the Jedi should end?” Finn asks, standing up.

“I don’t know,” she responds, hugging her arms to her chest.  “I feel like I don’t know anything anymore.”

“Look, all I’m saying is that maybe you should consider what they said,” Finn says, crossing his arms.  “Maybe making a Jedi temple would—”

"So you’re agreeing with them?” Rey retorts, anger surfacing once more.  “You think I can just round up a bunch of Force sensitives and train them to be Jedi?”

“Look,” Finn says, trying to calm her down.  “If Rose taught me anything, it’s that there is no ‘us’ or ‘them’ when it comes to the Resistance, Rey.”

“This isn’t about the Resistance, though, is it?”  She has to stop herself from yelling.  “This is about me, using my _two days_ of Force training to build a temple not because I want to, but because _other people_ would feel safer if I did so?”

“That’s not what I’m saying—”

“Isn’t it?”  Rey throws her hands up in exasperation.

"This isn’t about us!” Finn yells.  “This isn’t about what _you_ want, Rey!”  His eyes widen, as though he’s immediately wishing he can take back the words.

“Get out,” she says, walking over to the door and opening it.  Finn takes one last look at her, shaking his head, before walking out of the room.  Rey has to stop herself from slamming the door behind him, her hands shaking with anger.

She feels Ben in her mind, prodding the bond, trying to urge her to open up and let him in.  And she wants to.  She desperately wants to see him, hold him, be held in return.

But he’d want to come for her then, wouldn’t he?  And they hadn’t finished negotiations with the Queen yet.  Despite what she now knew, Rey was determined to see this through.

About an hour later, there was another knock at her door.  “Go away, Finn!”  Stars, how childish could she possibly act this evening?

“It’s Rose, actually,” the mechanic said, peeking around the door.  Rey was scooted all the way up to the headboard of the bed, her arms wrapped around her knees, head cradled in her hands.  The longer she kept Ben out, the more insistent he became, and it was starting to hurt.  It felt like he was trying to knock her mind’s doors down with his shoulders.  Rey gestured for her to come in.

Rose looked around nervously, taking in Rey’s room, as though she expected it to be shrouded in some physical manifestation of Rey’s power.

“Finn seemed pretty heated when he left,” she commented eventually, sitting at the foot of the bed.  Rey nodded, but didn’t respond.  Rose took a slow breath.  “You think you guys will make up?”

“Eventually,” Rey admits, circling her temples with her fingertips, trying to reign the headache in.

“He can be kind of callous without even trying, can’t he?” Rose says, smiling just the barest amount.  Rey shrugs, and Rose sighs.  “I don’t really know what you guys fought about, but I’m sure he didn’t mean it.  Whenever he gets like that I just blame the Stormtrooper conditioning.”

“He thinks I should build the Jedi temple and start training Force-sensitives,” Rey says, not really finding any reason to lie.

“And you don’t want that?” Rose guesses, and Rey exhales loudly, dropping her legs so she’s sitting lotus-positioned.

“That’s the thing.  I don’t really know what I want,” Rey admits.  “Even if it was that, I don’t think jumping into training a bunch of Force-inept students is at the top of my priority list.  Nor is it the most intelligent move.”  She runs her hands through her hair, her fingers catching in the braid, and she groans.  “I barely even know what I’m doing.  How can they expect me to teach a bunch of newly-inducted Force trainees when I’m hardly a novice myself?”

“Don’t do it then, dummy,” Rose says with a shrug.  Rey looks at her, face contorted in confusion.  “You don’t have to do what they want you to do, you know.  It’s your decision, whether you’re the last Jedi or not.”

“I’m not a Jedi,” Rey says.  “When I went to Ahch-To, Master Luke was adamant that the Jedi come to an end.  The more research I do, the more I read those texts, the more holos I watch of the council Anakin Skywalker was a part of, the more I think, maybe he was right.”

“I’ve heard some, but not much,” Rose says.  “Mostly from my parents, who were a bit more on the biased side.  The Empire helped destroy my home world, and the First Order only perpetuated that, mining the ground until it was practically empty.  When they found out about Darth Vader and his relationship to Luke Skywalker, they were furious.”  She sighed, rolling her shoulders.

“From what I’ve found, the Jedi were so obsessed with their traditions that they refused to change with the evolving galaxy around them,” Rey says.  “And yet they continued to do things that were completely against the original Jedi code.”

“So,” Rose says, folding her legs underneath her.  She searched Rey’s eyes for a moment.  Rey was struck again by the natural beauty of her mechanic companion, with her endlessly rich eyes that she couldn’t hide her emotion in, no matter how hard she tried.  “Maybe it is time for the Jedi to end.”

“If I admit that, I’ll probably be the sole reason we lose this treaty with Naboo,” Rey groans.  Rose puts a hand up, shaking her head.

“I’m not saying you should commit to anything right now,” Rose responds.  “You might change your mind in a few years.  Or, who knows?  Maybe you’ll decide to make something entirely new.”

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Taking his time observing the Stormtroopers, Ren kept his eyes open for the stronger-willed soldiers.  Every time one made themselves known – whether it be an errant thought or a desperate plea to the heavens – Ren slipped quietly into their mind, feeling for that insecurity and latching onto it.  He whispered quietly into their heads, willing them to see a new light on their situation, before calmly letting them go.

They were none the wiser.

Hux was off rifling through the reconditioning classes in Charmaine’s quadrant, making sure the man was doing his job.  Charmaine had been part of Brendol Hux’s original team of Stormtroopers, and was getting along in age, but his devotion to the First Order was unparalleled.  It was his mind that was, unfortunately, beginning to slow down.

It was a pity.  Ren could use the distraction of toying with Hux as they closed in on Coruscant.  With Rey so adamantly forcing him out of her head, despite the tumultuous course her emotions had taken, he would welcome any sort of reprieve.  He was more worried than he cared to admit, practically banging the doors to her mind down.  When she gave him no access, he slowed down enough to look at the situation from all sides.  Whatever she was feeling, she was almost lost in her own head.

Now, when he quietly poked at the bond, too softly for her to realize, he saw that she was more at ease.  He knew she’d come to him when she was ready, tell him all about whatever it was that had her so angry and upset.

Patience was not a virtue Kylo Ren possessed.  But Ben Solo could, if he really tried; if it were for Rey.

So, he retreated from outside the cage of her mind, leaving her to her own devices, taking extra time to hone his body against the training droids, spending a number of hours on his holo-projector inputting a vast amount of data.  And then he’d retired himself to his chambers, awaiting word from Hux that they’d arrived at their destination.

Ben showered, ate quickly, then dressed down to his underclothes in hopes of sleeping.  But the fact that Rey had actively avoided him all day made it nearly impossible – she had yet to make contact since his Force vision at the beginning of the day.  He knew the anger she had felt boiling beneath her skin was no longer directed at him, but he had no idea what could possibly cause her such distress.  Though Rey was quick to anger, she was also quick to dispel it.  Except today.

Something wasn’t right.  Whatever was happening on Coruscant was affecting her negatively – Ben could feel something churning just beneath the surface.

He closed his eyes, refusing to reach out to her once more, allowing her time to do so on her own.

It was the middle of the night when she finally appeared, curled up in a ball beside him.  Sleeping fretfully, it seemed.  The bond had chosen to open of its own accord, as it used to, before they took turns manipulating it.  And maybe that was why – they’d not reached out to each other, not initiated anything, and perhaps the Force was impatient with their stubbornness.  Ben sat up on an elbow, watching her carefully, her eyebrows pulled together, her face twisted in agitation.  She rolls over, facing him, and Ben reaches out tentatively.  He lays a hand gently against her cheek.

Her eyelashes flutter, eyes cracking open just the barest amount.  She looks up at him, taking a slow breath.

“You’re here,” she says, her voice groggy with interrupted sleep, and Ben feels his heart sputter in his chest.

“I’m here,” he responds, lowering himself back down to the pillows.  “I never went anywhere.”  She reaches toward him, and he accepts her gratefully, wrapping her in a warm embrace.  She lays her head against his chest, nuzzling it as though she can get closer.  He gently combs out her hair with his fingers, feeling as she evens out her breathing.  He tries to resign himself to sleep, but he’s desperate to keep holding her, trick himself that she’s safe and real in his arms.

“I’m sorry,” she says after a while.

“It’s okay,” he says immediately.  “Go to sleep.”  But she’s shaking her head, looking up at him with tired eyes.

“I don’t know what to do, Ben,” she says, palming one of her eyes.  “I thought I was doing the right thing, but now I’m not so sure.”

“What are you talking about?”  She purses her lips, contemplating this, and he feels her indecision across the bond.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says.  “I wish you were here.”  He takes a slow breath, reminding himself that she’ll tell him when she’s ready.

“I am here,” he repeats, pulling her closer, letting his lips graze across her cheek.  She sighs against him, trailing her fingertips down his chest.  “Are you still mad?”

"No,” she says, but the harsh inflection in her tone gives away her true feelings.  Before he can say anything more, she sighs, shaking her head again.  “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”  Rey pulls him in closer, burying her face in his neck.  He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her as close as possible.  Unwilling to let any space between them.  She’s receptive, reaching up to lightly kiss along his jaw, his neck, until she settles there.

Once more, her breathing evens out as she slips into sleep, and this time, Ben is able to follow.

 ...

She’s gone the next morning, and even though he’s expecting as much, it still hurts just a little.  Despite knowing that they’re going to be so close, with the First Order closing in on Coruscant, he’s nearly praying they don’t cross paths, that their negotiations would conclude, and she’d be off Coruscant.  It’d solidify her safety.  Which was non-negotiable.  No matter what, Rey would make it out of this alive.

Even if Kylo Ren had to die protecting her.

The ship shudders out of hyperspace as Ben is dressing.  He pays such no mind, knowing Hux will demand his presence as soon as they plan to make an attempt to Coruscant.  Instead, Ben powers up his holo-projector, taking a couple of hours to finish his data input he’d begun the night before as the Force settles heavily on his shoulders.  Once over, he uploads all of it onto two separate drives, always making sure to keep backups of his research.  One he pockets – the other he summons a First Order BB unit.

Popping the hatch on the back of BB-9E’s bodily databoard, he deposits the small drive into the droid’s front dash.

“Upload this drive into the main control database under my personal outlook,” Ren says, fiddling with a few of the cables in the back of the BB unit’s rear panel.  He flips a hidden switch, and a number pad shifts into the panel.  Ren inputs his personal numeric code, listening as the droid makes all of the correct beeps.  BB-9E whirs, its head spinning, before its large camera eye comes to rest on Ren’s face.  “Make sure the upload is completed.  Once it’s at one hundred percent, it cannot be corrupted or stopped.  From there, head to _my_ Upsilon and prime the ship for departure.”

BB-9E beeps its consent before spinning and rolling out of the room.  It was midday now, based on Coruscant’s clock, and Ren knew BB-9E would take a few hours before all of his commands were completed.

The Force prickled around Ben’s shoulders, making the hairs at the back of his neck stand on end.  He’d been having a sense of foreboding all morning that only got stronger as the day progressed.  His computer work finished, his plan already in motion, but there was a small amount of nervousness that nothing would go according to his carefully detailed procedure.

Kylo Ren was thorough to a tee.  But there was a rush to finish what he started.

Facing his doorway, he knew something was waiting on the other end, but they’d not bothered to check BB-9E.  No one would do diagnostics on a standard-issue BB droid without prompting, and Ben knew there was nothing that could trace his plan to that specific droid.  A thousand others like it wandered these halls on a daily basis, and his was only special in a way known only to him.

That droid held the key to his future.

For that future to come to fruition, Ben had to face his present.  With a determination, he stalked out of his chambers.

His Upsilon was empty, which came as no surprise.  BB-9E would be nowhere near finished with its assigned tasks.  But it gave Ben the opportunity to slip in and out unnoticed, taking just a moment to glance in the private chambers where he’d shared too many precious moments with Rey.  It left a warm, aching feeling in his chest, thinking about their journey through the galaxy together.

The hangar was a stress of activity as Stormtroopers prepared themselves for the inevitable battle.  Ren knew those soldiers would stay holed up in those transports for hours if the command was to wait.  As he walked by, he brushed each of their minds, reading them, finding any last holes or points of interest.  But the days he’d spent formulating and putting his plan into action, he’d probably touched the mind of every trooper on his ship at least four times.  And every time, those whispers he’d so carefully placed within them were still there, growing stronger with their own resolve.

Rolling his shoulders, Ren took the lift up to the bridge, feeling the Force flashing warnings around him like a red siren.  Whatever waited for him on the other side of those steel doors would be the beginning of his downfall, he was sure of it.

The lift stopped its ascent, the air compressor releasing for a moment before the door slid open.

Without hesitation, Ben stepped off.

He barely even felt the pain of the blaster bolt as it ripped into his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my lovelies!
> 
> I love these little bonding moments between Rey and Rose (if that answers your questions, Keshkreature haha). I honestly think Rose and Rey would have an incredible relationship if there wasn't what I'm guessing is going to be some amount of romantic rivalry between them in EP IX, even if it is mostly one-sided. Because Rey is going to be off fantasizing about Ben, but her longing looks could be misinterpreted. Who knows. That's a guess.
> 
> Ben's being especially secretive too.
> 
> Anyway! Cliffhangers are my specialty, there is some foreshadowing happening here; the story is coming to a climax, and I'm so excited about all of it.
> 
> Also! I'm very nearly done with that painting I mentioned before - just gotta do the final stuff - but does anyone know how to embed a picture into a chapter? I wanna post it next update, and if I have to link it to my Tumblr I will, but it'd be cool to have it as "cover art", I guess?
> 
> I love you guys! I hope you guys don't get too anxious for Friday - I promise it'll come fast.
> 
> Leave me comments! Ask me questions! LEAVE ME KUDOS!!!! Validate my existence.
> 
> I'll see you on Friday!!


	30. in which one space nerd schools the other space nerd's mom

The negotiations between the Resistance and Queen Brennisca picked up promptly at first light, despite Rey barely being awake enough to function.  The first half of her night had been fraught with restless sleep, and the second half she’d spent curled up next to Ben had ended far too quickly.

He was still there, for the first time, after Rose quietly rapped on her door and urged her awake.  Sleeping peacefully, his black hair a halo against her pillow, falling back in a way that she could actually see his ears for once.  She caressed one carefully, noting with some mild amusement how big they were.  She leaned down and kissed it lightly, loving how every piece of him was just _Ben_.  She could see hints of his family – Padme in his eyes, his mother in his cheeks, his father in his chin, Anakin in his hair and forehead.  But all of these borrowed traits pulled together to make Ben Solo, her other half.

It was almost painful to extract herself from that bed, but she did it, slipping quietly into the ‘fresher.  Coruscant had water showers, and she had to wonder where they got their water from – this planet had no natural reservoirs as far as she knew.

She dressed herself in her clean black robes, making sure both of her lightsaber hilts were prominently displayed.  She folded Ben’s cloak over her arm instead of wearing it, figuring there was probably no real threat so long as she remained within Brennisca’s wing of the Senate building.

Rose was waiting for her when she emerged, wearing a light gray, quarter-sleeved tunic and loose-fitting calf-length brown pants.  She looked a little out of her element, as though her clothes were simultaneously stifling and too revealing.

“Do I look like a total narf?” she asks, tugging awkwardly at the tunic.

“You look great,” Rey asks.

“Easy for you to say,” Rose sighs, looking Rey up and down.  “You probably look glamorous no matter what you wear.”  Rey raises an eyebrow at that.

“I’ve never really had the luxury of dressing for comfort.  Anything I’ve ever worn has been for durability and practicality.”  She shrugs.  “On Jakku it was all light colors and things to help survive in sand storms.  On Ahch-To it was for warmth.  Now it’s more to blend in than anything.”

“When we get back to base, there’s a couple of dresses I want you to try on,” Rose says, essentially ignoring everything Rey had just said.  Rey smiles regardless – the girl was like a little ball of light, trying to bring happiness into any situation.  She found, after their conversation stretched on for hours the night before, that she quite enjoyed Rose’s companionship.  Despite what Rey had done – how she’d compelled her using the Force – they seemed to somehow find neutral ground.

It took everything Rey had not to admit that she wasn’t going back to the base.

The events in the conference room droned well into midday, with no apparent agreement coming along, and they decided to take a break for tea and lunch.  Rey wasn’t terribly hungry – she’d been trying and failing to catch Finn’s attention all morning, hoping to resolve the rift in their friendship before it was too late.  The Force had been whispering to her all morning, letting her know that something was off, and every time she caught Theran’s eye – which was too often, because he was always staring at her – the scowl in his gaze seemed to deepen until it was downright sinister.

Finn ignored her, Poe stretched his limbs, and the Queen excused herself for some extended period of time, letting them know she’d call for them when she saw it fit to return.  Poe took the opportunity to usher them back into Rose and Rey’s room – they’d not found a spy droid in the boys’ room, but they’d not looked too terribly hard either.  He pulled out his comm link and called Leia.

Her face filled the holoprojector after a moment, concern lining her brow.  “Any updates to report?” she asks, but there’s a tone in her voice that makes Rey think she already knows the answer.

Poe sighs shakily regardless.  “No, this negotiation seems to be headed further and further south the longer it drags on.  It’s like she’s waiting for something, but I can’t tell you what.”  He shakes his head, palming his temples, trying to rub out the stress.  “Let me tell you, General; I have worked for you for a long time, and even you were never this damn stubborn.”

“She must be waiting for a commitment,” Leia muses, her eyebrows pinched together in frustration.  “She wants to know that it’s not folly, and that the Jedi are coming back.”

“Fat chance,” Finn interjects before Rey can say anything.  “Rey doesn’t want to start a new Jedi Order.  She thinks it’s corrupt.”  Rey stands, anger coating her features.

“Finn—”

“I’m not disagreeing with Rey,” Leia interrupts.  “The Jedi were a dated religion – it was part of what led to their downfall.  Darth Vader was too prone to making emotional connections, and that was forbidden.  It’s what led to his turmoil.”  Leia sighs slowly, her eyes meeting Poe’s.  “Has Rey made a choice?”

"No,” Rey says for him, her tone biting.  Leia only nods, and Rey moves toward the front of the screen, wanting to tell Leia off, let the General know it was an inordinate amount of pressure to try and dictate her fate without so much as consulting her to begin with.

She doesn’t quite make it that far.

A sudden fire rips through her chest, hot and fast, scorching her body, and Rey _screams_ , dropping to her knees, her hands trying to grasp, trying to stop the blood flow.  She can feel the wound gaping, the blood as it pools on the floor, but when she blinks again it’s gone.  She’s clawing, trying to find the wound, looking wildly for the blaster that caused it.

Rose is kneeling by her side, yelling something, with Finn next to her, his eyes a wide mix of rage and confusion.  She can hear Poe making demands into the holo comm, but she can’t hear the demands themselves.  The pain is too great, warring with her, trying to win her consciousness.  She looks around wildly, catches Leia’s eyes from the projector, wide with fear.

And she knows suddenly that this pain is not her own.

But that doesn’t make it go away, and she’s gasping trying to stay awake, but the currents of pain are causing huge waves to crash onto the beach of her conscious mind.  She’s sputtering her fear, her trepidation.  And then, she manages to utter a single word, something she hopes Leia hears, hopes Leia understands, before she’s dragged under.

“Ben!”

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ben startles awake, moving to sit up, before the pain in his chest is too great to bear.  He falls back, gritting his teeth to bite back a groan.  His tunic is opened in the front, and there’s a huge bacta pad covering his chest.  Like someone was concerned for his well-being after fucking _shooting_ him.

He’d managed to keep most of the bolt from hitting him, the same way he’d stopped Chewbacca’s bowcaster shot – manipulating the Force to push back some of the exertion so it didn’t kill him.  Probably much to the disgust of General Armitage Hux.  The thought makes Ren smirk as he takes in his surroundings.

He’s clearly in the brig, laying on one of the cold steel benches with manacles around his wrists – how had Hux not thought to use the Force-suppression cuffs?  Would he think Ren was too weakened by the shot to be properly detained?  Not that he blamed him – his power was almost completely depleted, and he supposed he should have been more incapacitated, being shot at point blank range in the chest.  The brig on the Ascendancy is right next to the engines of the ship, and the whole cell is practically vibrating, which only serves to make his wound ache that much more.

Trying to sit up again, Ben is once more thrown onto his back with the pain that ripples through his chest.  He takes a shaky breath through his teeth, pulls the Force against him, and urges it into the wound, working with the bacta to fill the hole, stitching his flesh back together.

“Ben?”  He groans, turning to face Rey, who’s staring down at him with concern coloring her face.  “What happened?”  He didn’t even notice that the Force had connected them.  Too lost in his own pain.

“Oh, this?” he asks, gesturing weakly to his wound.  “Just a flesh wound.”

“Don’t lie to me, Ben Solo,” Rey says angrily.  “I _felt_ it.”  His eyes snap open, having closed them in concentration to heal himself.  He’d never needed to do this, always relying on Chrinda Ren for his healing during missions with his Knights.  It was physically exhausting to use the Force for any type of healing – a highly advanced move he’d never had the opportunity to learn or practice, but it was working, though barely.  He just didn’t have the energy to spare.

“ _You felt it?”_ he asks angrily, wanting desperately to sit up.  She moves over to where he’s lying, sitting on the edge of the metal cot.  She tries to release his cuffs, but he waves her away.  It’d look too suspicious if he was suddenly unshackled.

“Don’t worry about that,” she says, taking a deep breath.  After a moment, he feels her take his hand, feels the power of her Force seeping into his skin.  He tries to shake her off, but she holds strong, allowing him to leech off her energy.  “What happened?  Where are you?”  He takes a moment, allowing her power to fuel his healing.  She keeps her eyes on his face as it slowly relaxes, no longer contorted in pain.

“The brig.  I was overthrown,” he hisses as he sits up.  Tearing off the bacta strip, he looks down at the pulsing, fresh pink flesh.  Not completely healed, but it won’t scar too bad, at least.  It’s tender, but he can move around it.

“How?” she asks as he refastens his tunic, folding it around the hole the bolt left, but she doesn’t seem surprised.  He supposes she shouldn’t be.  It was mostly matter of time, and Ren was almost shocked it took as long as it did.  He pinches the bridge of his nose.

“I didn’t see much,” he confesses.  “I can guess, though.”  He looks at her, noting the dark circles under her eyes; a badge she earned for enduring his suffering.  “I’ll kill each and every one of them for causing you pain.”  She smiles, but it barely touches her eyes, and he feels the anger coursing through his veins.  Bringing justice to those who harmed her would taste incredibly sweet.

“Ben,” she shakes her head.  “I am not the one who got shot.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he says, standing up, before he feels the Force pull Rey away.  He sighs, staring at the empty space, until the airlock on his cell door hisses, then opens a half-second later.

Hux walks in, looking significantly more pretentious than he normally does.  His nose is in the air, looking down at Ben through narrowed eyes, hands clutched purposefully behind his back.  Exuding an air of self-assurance that tries desperately to fill the cabin.  Unsuccessfully.

“Ren,” he spits, his left eye twitching, as though it’s an inconvenience to even have to say the name.  “You’re looking far more put together than I was hoping.”  Ben doesn’t dignify him with a response, his hands curling into fists, wishing desperately he could choke the life out of the man before him.  He curls his shoulders in, as though trying to stifle the pain while feigning his own confidence – Ben can tell by the flicker of satisfaction in Hux’s eyes that he was a far better actor than he gave himself credit.  When Hux realizes Ben has no intention of divulging in his ridiculous conversation, a smirk forms across his face.

“I have to admit,” Hux says, taking a step toward Ben, feigning that he’s no longer afraid, but Ben can still see that fear suppressed in his otherwise emotionless eyes.  “You are much more clever than I gave you credit for.”

“Is that so?”  He makes sure his voice is gruff, as though talking itself is a stressful action.

“Truly, I always mistook you for a brainless oaf who hid behind your magical abilities.”  He waves his fingers to accentuate his point.  “But you’ve made it this far, so you must have some amount of cognitive function up there.”  Ben has to stop himself from rolling his eyes.

“Did you shoot me just to obtain the opportunity to berate me?” Ben asks, shuffling a step closer to Hux, who puffs out his chest in mock confidence.

“Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t the one who got the honors of putting that bolt in your chest,” Hux says.  Ben stops himself from showing his surprise.

He’d exited the turbolift knowing someone was going to attack him, planning for it, so he hadn’t thought much about the situation outside of him.  Looking back, trying to analyze his surroundings, he realizes what he missed.

There hadn’t been a single Force signature on the bridge when he’d exited.

But that was impossible.

Unless…

Well, fuck.  Ben mentally smacks himself for not realizing sooner.

“Looks like the gears are turning beneath all of that ridiculous hair,” Hux comments, a sinister smile across his face.  “I know your secrets, Ren.”

“Excuse me for not gasping in surprise,” Ben says.  “I got shot.”

“It was strange to me,” Hux continued nonchalantly, “hearing from your own mouth admit that you were bested for the second time by the scavenger girl.”  Ben feels his hands claw, wanting desperately to rip the General’s throat out for speaking about Rey.  “And when I tried to watch the footage from Supreme Leader Snoke’s security cameras, I came to a roadblock.”  His voice has taken on a hint of satisfaction that makes Ben tense with anger.  “The data had been corrupted, anything collected by that camera lost with the destruction of the Supremacy.”

“The length at which you tell your stories is tiresome,” Ben says, trying desperately not to laugh as Hux positively _bristled_.  He opens his mouth to continue, but Ben beats him to the punch, wrenching Hux’s big reveal from his hands.  “You hacked my archives and found the data.”

“I-I—“ Hux stutters, affronted that what he considered a plot twist seemed almost old news to Kylo Ren.  How had he known?

“You truly believe my personal computer system would be so easily hacked by your sycophants?”  Now Ben does laugh at the audacity, reveling as Hux’s face pales.  Had he ever heard Kylo Ren laugh?  Neither of them could remember a time.

“It took _days_ to infiltrate your system,” Hux hisses, and his eyebrows shoot into his hairline, positively abhorred with himself that he’d admitted this.

“Clearly you need to retrain your tech personnel.”

“It doesn’t matter!” Hux roars, his composure beginning to slip.  “We have very clear footage of _you_ in that throne room, assassinating Supreme Leader Snoke!”

“Am I to be tried for treason, then?” Ben says, his voice portraying boredom.  Watching with some amount of delight as Hux’s face contorts with anger and humiliation.  Ren stealing his words out of his mouth, loosening the cannon.  “I’m guessing a death sentence.”  Hux pulls up, straightening his back, trying miserably to hold onto the shreds of his convoluted scheme.

“You guess correctly,” he says, his voice falling back to the detached tone Ben had come to know.  “Very soon, actually.  While you were taking your nap, I was working with my spy on Coruscant.  See, he’s had eyes on your little desert rat since the moment she stepped foot on First Order soil.”  Ben feels his face harden, his eyes boring into Hux, who has found a convenient spot on the wall beside him to focus on.  “She had some type of episode, had to be ushered back to her dorm within the Senate building.  What a tragedy,” he sighs.  Ren has to stop himself from smirking.

He’d told Rey, during their time together, that he didn’t like to keep up appearances for people who didn’t matter.

It took him long enough to figure out what Kylo Ren had been keeping from the rest of the First Order.  Finally, Hux had watched Ben kill Snoke for Rey, watched them destroy the Praetorian guard together.  No wonder he didn’t seem shocked when Ren came back from his trip with no new leads about where the scavenger had run off to.  Something satisfying clicks in his mind when he realizes that things are coming together very much how he hoped, with just a single hiccup.

He hadn’t planned on her being tracked for as long as she has – they were supposed to arrive on Coruscant at roughly the same time.  It still sickened him to know that Hux had Rey on his mind at all.

However.

He still had a part to play.

“You stay away from her,” Ben growls, and a smile spreads across Hux’s face.

“So you _do_ care for her,” Hux concludes.  “Well, perfect then.  Right about now, my assistant on Coruscant should be capturing her.  Your execution will be public, Ren,” he says pointedly, his lips still upturned in that disturbing smirk.  “And she’ll die alongside you.”

“If any harm comes to her, it will be your demise,” Ben snarls, but his anger is only half real – it’s a promise that has already been set to keep.  She’d already been harmed, haunted by his phantom pain as that blaster bolt ripped into her chest from across light years.

Hux is none the wiser, Ben can tell from the overconfident smirk.

“I’m afraid you’ll be far too dead to make true on such a threat.”  And with his ego so thoroughly stroked and his head once more held high on his shoulders, Armitage Hux takes his leave, abandoning a seething Ben Solo with a plan half-complete.

 ...

The hours drag on slowly.  At one point shortly after Hux leaves, he reaches for Rey, only to find her in a state of chemically-induced exhaustion.  Her eyes are open, but her head is so clouded she can’t see anything.  Pursing his lips, he tries desperately to urge her awake, but there’s not much he can do using so much energy to heal and her Force power out of his reach.

This was the part he hadn’t planned for.  He had been relying on Rey to be spotted immediately, just after she landed, so he could warn her that she had an hour to get everything sorted.  From there, he’d have relied on her to free him from the Ascendancy.

He wasn’t planning for her capture, as well.  Nor for her day-early arrival.

Resigning himself, Ben pulls back, sitting on the harsh metal cot and staring at the walls.  He didn’t have enough power to meditate.

 All he could do is have faith in Rey and wait.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rey could still feel the echo of Ben’s bolt wound in her chest with every breath, but after she came to understand and _accept_ that this wasn’t all her pain, it had subsided some.  She could breathe, at least.

After she’d collapsed, Leia and Chewie had landed the Falcon on Coruscant and come immediately to her bedside.  She was delirious with pain, both Poe and Finn freaking out, calling in medic droids who could find no physical evidence of any wound.  She faded in and out of consciousness for a few standard hours, then woke up when the pain was most of the way gone – bearing a part of the pain for him, so he didn’t have to feel it all.

Leia sat next to her on the bed, her brown eyes swimming with worry, and Rey sat up like nothing had happened.  The General laid her hand carefully on Rey’s, as though she was fragile and could be harmed from a mere touch, and Rey smiled reassuringly.

“I’m okay,” she breathed, absently pressing against her chest.  She could feel where the hole was on Ben, but her own skin was smooth and unblemished.  It was the strangest thing, like seeing in two dimensions.

“You have a whole room of people worrying about you out there,” Leia responds, her eyes trailing up and down Rey’s body, looking for any more of the pain she’d been suffering such a short time ago.  The concern lining her forehead makes Rey feel bad that she was ever angry with this woman to begin with.  But she hasn’t forgiven her.

“I should let them know I’m all right,” Rey responds, pushing into the bond.  She’s met with Ben’s exhaustion, and she decides to keep it open for when he wakes up.  She moves to stand, but Leia has a firm grip on her wrist, her eyes suddenly dancing with a thousand unanswered questions.

“Rey, what happened?” she asks.  Rey takes a slow breath as what she’d said before she blacked out comes back to the forefront of her mind.  She’d wanted to warn Leia, let her know to go after the Ascendancy and save Ben, but she’d come here instead.  Of course, she had.

“General,” Rey starts, shaking her head.  “There’s so much, too much to possibly explain right now.  Things you wouldn’t believe even if I told you.”  Leia searches Rey’s eyes, and Rey is truly hoping she finds answers.  It’d make this so much easier.

“You were on Tatooine with him,” Leia says slowly.  Rey’s chest constricts, but it’s no longer with the phantom pain of Ben’s wound.  “He saved your life, didn’t he?”

“More than once,” Rey finally admits, a weight she didn’t know she’d been carrying lifting off her shoulders.  She leans forward, grasping both of Leia’s tired hands in her own.  “Leia, I need you to understand.  He’s hurt, I know he is.  And I need to save him.”  Leia exhales, shaking her head, letting go of one of Rey’s hands to pinch the bridge of her nose.

“I don’t know,” she says, looking so worn, ravaged by this war, still fighting for her galaxy so many decades later.  Fighting the hope Rey knows is trying desperately to bloom in her chest; the hope that her son may come home.  “How do we know he’s not manipulating you?”  Rey shakes her head, trying to stifle the contempt roiling in her stomach with a soft smile on her face.

“You believe so little in him,” she says, and Leia’s eyes widen in genuine shock.  “Have I ever seemed like someone who could be manipulated?  Leia, _he saved me_.  Not just on Tatooine.”  She takes a deep breath, letting the truth come bubbling out in a rush.  “He killed Snoke, not me.”

“He killed Snoke?”  Rey nods vehemently, trying to will Leia to understand.

“He killed Snoke _for me_ , when my life was threatened.”  She can feel her excitement mounting as she talks about what truly happened, after so many months of lying, pretending.  Pretending Ben Solo meant nothing to her.  Pretending she’d gone on that ship and destroyed the Supreme Leader.  “And when I went to Tatooine, he went after me; he wanted to protect me.  Leia, we’re _connected_.  I can feel his pain, his anger, his sorrow, just as he can feel mine.”  She gestures to her chest, where agony had existed without injury.  “And right now, he’s _hurt_.  If I don’t go to him, he could die.”

Realization dawns on Leia’s face, and she stands abruptly.

“Where is he?”  Rey blinks at the unexpected shift.

“I imagine he’s still on board the Ascendancy,” Rey sputters, rising to her feet.

“Can you find out for sure?  Can you get the location of the ship?”  Rey searches for a moment.

“He’s not awake yet,” Rey sighs, taking a slow breath.  “If I meditate, I might be able to urge him out of unconsciousness and ask him what’s going on, get some information.”  Leia nods, putting a warm hand on Rey’s shoulder before turning and walking out of the room without another word.  Rey listens for a moment as Leia updates them on her ‘condition’, then sinks to the floor with her legs crossed.

The web of the Force stretches out almost immediately, Ben’s signature illuminating her subconscious, directly in the center.  As though the Force itself had been waiting for her to finally seek him out, slinking in the background until she was ready to submerge herself.

He was flickering, just on the verge of consciousness, and she was almost ripped apart by the pain in his chest once more.  Tentatively, she pulls part of it against herself, gritting her teeth against the pressure of the wound.  It felt less like fire, the edges of his flesh dulled to a numb throb, but the direct center of his chest was still a pulsating inferno.  Her hands shook against her thighs as she willed some of that pain to envelope her, then pressed part of her own Force against him.

He startled awake, and Rey took in a lungful of blazing air as she opened the bond to him.  She’d never seen him look so pitiful, his hair matted with sweat, stuck to his forehead and the side of his face.  She had to stop herself from smoothing it back.  Someone had been kind enough to throw a bacta patch over the hole in his chest – where the numbness had come from, she realized.  His hands shook against his manacles, and she felt him as he pulled the Force around him, could feel the small pinpricks of Force around the wound as he tried to heal himself.  Her heart ached seeing him in such a state, so far lost in his own agony that he didn’t see her until she called out to him.

Lending him her power, she felt the anger as it coursed through his veins, laced in his blood.  She was afraid to touch him, afraid to aggravate the lesion in his chest.  Once he was able to get to his feet without collapsing, she felt once more that she could breathe uninterrupted.

So focused on gaining information, she didn’t realize when another presence was suddenly behind her.  Not until something grabbed her, muffling her mouth with their hand as they plunged a needle into her neck.

Perhaps, if she’d known, she could have fought the intrusion.

But the only thing she would remember was that she hadn’t felt another Force signature slip its way into her room.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“How’s Rey?” Finn asks as soon as Leia exits.  Rose’s eyes dart to his face for just a half-second before she looks away, and Leia can’t help but give the poor girl a knowing smile.  Which, of course, Rose looks away from as well.

“Rey is fine, she just needs rest,” Leia reassures them.  Poe has been incessantly pacing, though the General can’t tell if her First Commander is concerned about the Jedi or the ongoing treaty negotiation with Naboo.  He glances at Leia as she speaks, expectant for more information that Leia won’t offer.  Whatever is happening between the girl and her son is between the two of them.

Though Leia has an inkling of an idea.  The thought brings a smile to her face.

“Someone should sit in there with her,” Rose suggests, but Leia shakes her head.

“I spoke to her,” Leia says.  “She’s exhausted from this whole ordeal and would prefer that we didn’t fret over her well-being.”

“What even happened?” Poe asks.

“I’m not sure,” Leia responds.  “Rey doesn’t know either, but I’m sure she’ll be out soon.”  Sitting in one of the plush crimson chairs and exhaling slowly, Leia wrings her hands.

Negotiations with Naboo didn’t seem to be going well.  If they’d taken another day, Leia had every intention of landing and intervening.  Brennisca was known for her tenacity and conviction.  Leia expected Rey’s presence to help sway her decision, but Naboo was an independent nation, and Brennisca’s hesitation came as no surprise.

Brennisca was young, but she’d heard legends of the Jedi.  The balance before the wars wreaked havoc across the galaxy.  Before the Empire.

But it didn’t pass Leia’s notice how Rey reacted to Leia insinuating that she rebuild the Jedi.  The anger in her eyes, the dejection, the apprehension.  Truthfully, it was what led Leia to believing Ben might have manipulated Rey.  Surely it couldn’t incur such a negative connotation, to rebuild an entire phenomenon from the ashes of a dated religion.  It made every sense in the galaxy to Leia, but hers was an outside perspective.

Now, taking a moment to think on the situation, she must scoff at herself.  While she was at ease with her decision, Leia had, so many years ago, opted to decline Luke’s lessons in favor of serving the galaxy as part of the Galactic Senate.  She spent many months in this very city, overseeing strategic analyses and rebuilding the New Republic in the image she saw fit.

Why, then, was she so surprised when Rey rebutted her suggestions?  In her position, Leia had to admit that she’d have likely done the same thing.  Rey was so headstrong, having clawed her way out of adversity tooth and nail.  It took so much for her to stop being that lonely girl from the desert.

Of course, Leia hadn’t seen that she still was that girl.  She’d only shoved that side of herself down, burying it until it became a wound that festered during her long nights spent wandering Barkhesh.  But upon returning from her impromptu trip, despite the solemn attitude she sometimes let slip through the cracks, Leia had seen more light in Rey’s eyes than had ever been there before.

Because of Ben.

Her son.

She wouldn’t allow herself to, but Leia nearly burst into tears when she saw the look on Rey’s face as they discussed him.  The boy she thought long gone.  The boy she’d held in her arms, so many years ago.  The boy who’d caused so much death and destruction, and yet Rey had seen something within him.  Something redeemable.  Something good enough that she was willing to risk infiltrating the enemy just to save his life.

That hope that had made itself known in her heart when she’d heard of Rey on Tatooine spiked.  It was trying so hard to find purchase, find soil in which its roots could grow, until a garden filled her lungs.  Rey’s words replayed over in her mind on a continuous loop, watering that hope.

Rey knew Ben, perhaps better than Leia ever had.  She hadn’t always been the best mother, she was well-aware of her mistakes in raising her son and walked away from his betrayal with the guilt of every planet in the galaxy on her shoulders.

Leia felt foolish.  She’d given up hope on her son and relied on some stranger to drag him back to the light.  How could she ever forgive herself for that?

Suddenly, she feels Rey’s Force dull, and then it’s gone completely.  Not gone in the way that Luke’s was, but the spot where she’d taken up just a moment ago seemed to have disappeared all at once.  She stands, looking at each of her Resistance soldiers in the room.

“Something’s wrong,” she says, and Finn, Rose, and Poe all give her a confused look.  Leia moves as quickly as she can to Rey’s quarters, not bothering to knock as she barges in.

“Leia, what’s happening?” Rose asks, coming to stand beside the General before she takes a moment to look.  Her eyes scan the room once, then twice, before they settle on Leia’s stony face.

“Where’s Rey?” Finn asks, coming up behind her.  There’s a knock at the main entrance, but Leia is trying to see.  She hears Poe answer.

“She’s gone,” Leia finally mutters, staring into the empty room where the girl had been mere minutes ago.  But that’s impossible.  There are no windows in this room, the only door the one they’d just come through.

“General,” Poe calls, and Leia can feel the tension rolling over his body.  “They’re here.  They just broke atmo.”

Leia walks into Rey’s room, continuing her search, as Finn and Rose start planning their next course of action with Poe.  She goes to the bedside table, where Rey’s lightsaber hilt is left leaning against the dark wood, just where Rose had left it.

As she leans down to pick it up, Leia feels an unnatural breeze from the opposite wall.  She walks back around the bed, saber in hand, and presses a panel that pops open with a slow hiss.

“Finn,” she calls.  He runs in, eyes wild with fear and disbelief, and takes a moment to assess the lightsaber in her hands and the secret doorway hidden behind the wall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my lovelies!
> 
> Sorry about the constant switch in perspective here, but things are jumping around a lot since the plot is starting to heat up. I wanted to attack it from all sides, make sure everything is accounted for. Plus, Leia is a very interesting character to write, as well, so I took joy in picking her brain. I feel like she'd feel so beaten after realizing what transpired between Rey and Ben and hearing that Ben was still, in many ways, the boy she raised.
> 
> Ben is so goddamn sassy to Hux, this was honestly one of my favorite scenes to write. If you remember, way back when our space nerds were still on Ahch-To, I did a scene cut to Hux getting one of his lackeys to hack archives. They were, in fact, Ben's archives, and he was hiding the camera footage from Snoke's throne room (which is a detail touched on in the novelization of The Last Jedi). But Ben expected and planned for this, because he's a smart little shit. All that time he spent on a datapad on the Upsilon? Yeah.
> 
> So, a lot of people were asking if all of this was part of Ben's plan, and to an extent yeah, but he's also playing it as he goes lol. In true Solo fashion.
> 
> Anyway, I played around trying to figure out how to embed a picture for like fifteen minutes before I gave up, so here's the link to the post on my Tumblr. There are a few things I wish were different (like how good I am at painting.) I also wish I'd not put them so close together, rather had their arms outstretched toward each other from opposite sides of the canvas, but I didn't think about that until after I'd finished drawing and cutting them both out from the poster board they were originally on. So maybe next time.
> 
> http://makeshiftcandy.tumblr.com/post/174920862688/hi-i-drew-a-reylo-painting-for-my-fanfiction-on
> 
> I'm not sure if it'll actually show up as a link, so I'm sorry if you have to copy and paste it - otherwise it'll just be the first post on my Tumblr, which is www.makeshiftcandy.tumblr.com
> 
> The comments in response to the cliffhanger I left you guys off on made me crack up. I'm sorry to do that to you. But also not really - I was telling on of my best friends that I don't feel like an accomplished writer if I don't make my readers laugh and cry and freak out all during the same story.
> 
> So. Keep that in mind.
> 
> I love you guys! Leave me comments, ask me questions. Validate my existence by leaving kudos!!!
> 
> I'll see you on Tuesday!


	31. in which one of our favorite space nerds gets kidnapped

Rey wakes up without any way of knowing how much time has passed.  She’s shackled, her wrists bound in cuffs and plated to a platform, and the memory of being trapped at the hands of Kylo Ren blazes through her mind unbidden.

She no longer feared the monster behind that mask.  It wasn’t anything that haunted her dreams, never truly had been.  Even in the beginning, she found it impossible to be afraid of Ben.

The same did not hold true for the masked assailant currently studying her.

Perhaps fear wasn’t the correct word.  Perhaps she was cautious, or cynical, or leery.  But the black mask glistened as it took her in – not in the way Ben once had, all curious and alluring.  No, this creature did not kneel before her, rather stood its full height, staring her down from an opaque transparisteel blast shield visor, but she could feel the eyes on the other side as they roved over her body.  Her skin crawled, and she tried desperately to reach Ben only to realize she couldn’t feel the Force at all.  She panics for a moment, feeling as though she’s lost a sense.

“It’s quite a difficult thing to learn,” the monster said, his voice disguised by a deep vocoder probably meant to instill dread.  “Force-suppression, I mean.  It took me a number of years to master – originally thought to be a Sith theory and nothing more.”  Rey didn’t dignify her instigator with a response, choosing to keep her gaze steady in fear that her voice might waiver.  “Such a strong will,” the monster said as it took two deliberate steps toward her.  It circled the platform she was bound to like a bird of prey, taking in her tense form.  “No wonder Kylo Ren is so interested in you.”

“What do you know about Kylo Ren?” she spits, his chosen name souring her tone even more.  She wasn’t sure how much such a beast would know about her relationship with Ben Solo, so she kept his name to herself.  It was a private thing.  A personal gift he’d allowed her to keep by letting her use it.  She wasn’t quite sure how many people in the galaxy even knew him as Ben anymore, outside of herself and his mother.

“Much more than you, I’m sure,” the being said, sounding somewhat amused behind the robotic cadence of the vocoder.  “It’s an unfortunate turn of events, really, that Kylo happened to be the only one to pick up Master Snoke’s mind infiltration technique.  It would have been quite handy now, figuring out what you do know, and what use you are to me.”

“Too bad, indeed,” Rey responds, narrowing her eyes.  She determined that this creature before her wouldn’t take his mask off if requested.  “Do you intend to kill me then?”

“It’s delightful how fearless you are,” the monster responded, and she could almost hear a genuine smile warped in his words.  “No.  Not yet, anyway.”  The being shrugs.  “Perhaps later, once General Hux has gotten whatever information he seems to need from Kylo.  And after I’ve gotten information from you.”  He stepped closer, the cold steel of the mask nearly brushing the side of Rey’s face.  She held strong, keeping her eyes on the creature as it sauntered around, confident in what she wasn’t exactly sure.

“You won’t get anything from me,” she hisses.  But she doesn’t know that for certain.  He stated that he was able to suppress her Force – and of course she didn’t have her lightsaber on her.  Not that it would be beneficial in her current predicament, but at least it would be a relief.

“Are you sure?” he asks, and she can hear the smug tone under his fake voice.  “Not even if I tell you I shot Kylo Ren in the chest?”  She just stares at him, hoping that she’s meeting his gaze as evenly as possible.  After a moment, he stands, pulling back from where he’d been uncomfortably close to her skin to peer down at her once more in that inquisitive way.  “You knew.”

Rey’s hands fist against the steel platform she’s bolted to.

“I suppose you might be more clever than I gave you credit,” he says with a slight nod, resuming his prance around her detained body.  As though she’s on the cusp of death and he’s a vulture, waiting patiently for his next meal.  “Or, somehow, Kylo had a way to inform you.  Though I doubt it.  I found no contraband on him when he was taken into custody.”  Still, she doesn’t grace him with a retort.  “I wanted it to be over and done with rather quickly, but Hux has other ideas.  He wants to make a spectacle of the _Supreme Leader_.”  The way he hisses the words reminds Rey so much of herself, like it’s an unbelievable sentiment that Ben Solo – Kylo Ren – might be Supreme Leader of the galaxy at all.

The beast suddenly rears up, squaring his shoulders and Rey can _feel_ the way he glares at her from beneath the mask.  Like she’s below the dirt stuck to her boots.

“I am not surprised he killed Snoke,” he says suddenly.

“I killed Snoke,” Rey says immediately, as though she can somehow draw attention away from Ben and center it on herself.  As though she can somehow save him from here, strapped to some steel platform with no access to her extended abilities.

“Funny, then, how security footage from his turbolift clearly shows Kylo ripping the lightsaber through that decrepit old man’s body.”  Rey grits her teeth.  There were cameras?  And they’d not seen the footage prior to recently, clearly.  How was that possible?  “Not that I blamed him.  Out of all of us, Kylo suffered the worst at the hands of that monster.”  Rey glared at him for a moment.

“You’re a Knight of Ren.”  It wasn’t a question, and the monster picked up on her bold accusation.  Yes, she was far more clever than he gave her credit.

“Yes,” he answers simply.  “Kylo Ren is my Master.  Or, was.”

“You were one of Skywalker’s students.”  It is also not a question, and she can feel the way his blood is boiling beneath the layers of armor he’s wearing.  She’s taking the secrets of his life and ripping them apart, and she knows he’s trying to find a way to blame Kylo Ren, or Luke Skywalker, or maybe both.

“Not quite the star pupil Ben Solo was all those years.”  He says Ben’s name like a curse, and Rey knows that this man prefers the cold, calculative, emotionless husk that is Kylo Ren over Ben Solo.  “But that’s all in the past, dear Jedi.  The future happens to be much more bleak for the both of you.”

"You underestimate the both of us,” she says almost casually, like they’re having a quaint conversation over tea.  She’d said something quite similar to Snoke, just before his demise.  This is a tired argument.

“Oh, I hope so,” he responds, and Rey can feel the wicked grin as it stretches across his face.  A question pops into her mind and escapes the barrier of her teeth before she can stop it.

“You’d be so quick to turn on your Master?”

“My Master was just as quick to turn on us,” he hisses, the vocoder turning his words into an angry garbled mess.  “He chose the wrong path.  With the galaxy in his hands, with the title of Supreme Leader worn brazenly on his breast.  Kylo Ren threw everything away… for a filthy scavenger.”  And now she was able to ascertain his disdain.

“He is still Supreme Leader,” she retorts, albeit a bit shaky.

“An imbalanced Supreme Leader,” the beast says.  “Unwilling to see to the change this galaxy needs.  Unable to arm his army with the necessary weapons and technology befit for such an empire.  Attempting to pass regulations to abolish slavery, refusing to take tactical meetings with benefactors willing to rebuild a super weapon.  Wanting to banish the Stormtrooper program in favor of volunteer soldiers.”  He shakes his head in muted disgust, but Rey only feels her eyes widen.  Ben was…  Ben wanted to do good for the galaxy.  The revelation is like a punch to the gut.  She’d refuted his insistence that he come with her under the guise that she refused the power – but it hadn’t even crossed her mind that that power could be used to do right by the galaxy, let alone that Kylo Ren would want to do that right.

Her heart swells, and she swallows carefully, keeping her face stoic as she buries these emotions until later.

“All of the power in the galaxy and he chooses to use it to disadvantage those superior to the scum that inhabits these systems.”

“You think yourself above every other creature in this galaxy.”  Another assumption, rather than a question.

“I have more power than the vast majority of its inhabitants,” he responds simply, as though that is an explanation in itself.  “You might believe so, too, if you truly tapped into your potential.  Alas, Kylo Ren has clouded your judgement of the Dark Side with his broken spirit, and you were far too naïve to believe any alternative.”

“Don’t claim to know me,” she hisses, sitting up as far as she can with her wrists bound.  The metal of her cuffs cuts into her skin, but the anger is too close to the surface of her flesh for her to feel anything else.  “And do _not_ claim to know Kylo Ren.”

“So protective,” the beast purrs, making Rey’s skin crawl.  “I haven’t spoken to General Hux, but I wonder if Kylo offered your name the same sort of sanctity.”  He grew closer, trying to draw her in, make her fear him in a way she refused.  After all, this creature before her was merely a Knight of Ren – she’d faced off with their Master and bested him.

The door suddenly hisses open, and a Stormtrooper walks in carrying a blaster.  Rey’s hope spikes for just a moment, praying to the stars that he can be influenced, before she remembers that she can’t use the Force.

“General Hux has summoned you to his personal conference table,” the Stormtrooper says, and the Knight wheels around, taking the trooper in with lengthy gaze.  The trooper steps back, intimidated, before he says, “He wants to discuss the prisoners.”

The creature shakes his head minutely, then gives Rey a long look.  “Make sure she is left alone.  Stand guard outside her door and do not let anyone else through.”

The trooper salutes, following the Knight out as he stalks from the room.  After a good measure of distance, the Force rushes back to Rey all at once, swirling around her body like a breeze, making her feel like the limb she’d lost had suddenly grown back.

She presses against her bindings, sighing when they refuse to pop open.  There must be some kind of release hatch, but she has no idea where it could possibly be without looking.  If only that kriffing Stormtrooper would come back.  Perhaps, if she calls to him, feigns injury, he’d feel obligated to help her.  Surely Finn can’t be the only soldier in existence with compassion?

The door hisses open again, and Rey throws her head back, cursing.  It’s far too soon for the monster to have returned.

Instead, the Stormtrooper runs in, jogging up to Rey and looking around her confining table until he presses a button that unlocks the wrist bindings.  She didn’t influence him, did she?  Just by willing the blasted things open?

"Rey,” he breathes, and her eyebrows shoot into her hair.

“Finn?”

“Oh.”  He reaches up, yanking the mask off, giving her just a moment to take in his familiar face before he’s wrapping her in a tight hug.  “I’m so happy you’re alright.”

“I’m fine,” she laughs, pulling away.  “How did you get here?  Is everyone else okay?”

“Everyone’s fine,” he reassures her, pulling out a pair of cuffs.  She looks down at them, and he shakes his head.  “They’re just for show, I promise.  We gotta break you out of here, and to do that it’ll be easier to pretend we’re transferring you.”

“How did you get here?” she asks again, holding out her wrists.  He clicks the cuffs closed, and she feels the Force as it leaves her once more.  “Force-suppression?”

“It made the most sense.  We’re trained to be able to tell the difference.”  He took a slow breath, then looks down at the shiny white mask in his hands with uninhibited disgust.  “I thought I was rid of this once and for all, but we took advice from General Organa.  The First Order broke atmo on Coruscant a couple of hours ago and immediately called Theran and Brennisca to the ship.”  He shakes his head.  “They wanted to broker a deal, and Brennisca agreed when they sent a hoard of Stormtroopers into her quarters to bring her back under threat to her people that are staying in her wing.”  He puts the Stormtrooper helmet back on, grabbing her roughly by the arm and leading her out.

Two other troopers are waiting just outside the door, one far shorter than the other, looking awkward in the oversized gear.  Rey can’t help but smile, and though she can’t see it, she can tell that Rose beams back.

They begin walking, leading her through the maze of hallways that made up the Ascendancy, and Finn continues.  “See, after you went missing, General Organa found a secret passageway in your room that led directly to Theran’s quarters.”

“You were right about that guy,” Poe interjects, leaning closer to her.  He has a blaster at the ready, held against her back.  A valiant effort of showmanship.  “Piece of shit has been working with Hux the whole time.  _He_ was the leader of the First Order spy network.”

“So, Brennisca was led onto a First Order ship in handcuffs, and we were able to slip on, with some less-than-conventional help from Chewie.”  Finn shrugs, and Rey purses her lips to hide her smile.  She must play the part, look like a prisoner.

“As soon as we landed back on the Ascendancy, we took out three guards and borrowed their gear,” Rose says, shaking her head.  “Though, honestly, this place seems to be falling apart regardless.  Platoons were splitting off, running around like they had no idea what they were supposed to be doing.”

“Yeah, something is definitely amiss,” Finn says.  “We were able to intercept Brennisca and get her off the ship – Poe made sure to set the destination to the Falcon, so Chewie, Leia and Connix can take care of her.”  The four of them go silent as they pass a group of troopers, but all of them look confused.

"From there, I was able to hack the database and figure out what room they were keeping you in,” Rose says proudly.  “Finn was the only person who knew anything about the Knights of Ren, so he volunteered to lead the guy away from you.”

“I’ve only ever heard about them,” Finn admits.  “But I figured he was half the reason you and Brennisca were here, so he’d want some type of intel from Hux about what to do with you guys.”  Rey stops, hissing when the tip of Poe’s blaster presses a little too harshly into her spine.  It’s only then that she realizes they’re walking toward a lift that will take them to a hangar.

“Me and the Queen?” she asks, looking between the three of them.  “I thought you were here to rescue me and Ben?”

“Ben?” Finn asks, shaking his head.  “Who is Ben?”

“Kylo Ren,” she clarifies, and all three of them recoil from her like she’s shocked them.  “No, you don’t understand, he’s been taken hostage.  He’s in the brig.  We have to save him.”

“You’re joking, right?” Poe asks.  “Kylo Ren?  The Supreme Leader?  The guy who tortured me, and almost killed Finn?”  But she’s shaking her head, trying not to yell.

“He was usurped by Hux,” she insists.  Rose glances down the hallway, then pushes a panel next to her head, ushering the three of them into a utility closet just as a pair of officers round the corner.

“I don’t care!” Poe yells, ripping his helmet off.  The other two follow suit, Rose shaking her hair out, studying Rey curiously while the other two stare at her with varying degrees of fury in their eyes.  “He’s a murderer, Rey.  He ordered an entire village massacred on Jakku, or have you forgotten how you got roped into all of this to begin with?”

“I haven’t forgotten,” she says angrily.

“Clearly, he’s using some type of Force mind manipulation on you,” Poe says.  “Ripping into your head the same way he ripped into mine, so you’ll want to save him.”

“It isn’t like that,” she says through grit teeth.  “He saved my life.  More than once.”

“You think that forgives any of the shit he’s done?” Poe asks.

“I’m not asking you to forgive him, I’m asking you to help me save him!”

“He’ll be killed?” Rose asks, the only steady voice in the room.  Rey looks at her, eyes wide, pleading with each of them to understand.

“Yes,” she breathes.  “And, he’s bound to me, in more ways than one.  I’m not sure what will happen to me if he dies.”  She looks at each of them for a moment, trying to find a way to make them understand.  Because maybe if they won’t save him, she can convince them to save her.  “Earlier, when I collapsed in pain, it wasn’t _my pain_ I was feeling.  It was his.  He was overthrown, shot in the chest by his own men.  And I’m tied to him.  I had to feel an extension of that pain, by will of the Force.”

“How does this guy survive these attacks?” Finn asks, mostly to himself.  Rey pulls her hands up, rolling her eyes.

“Can you take these bloody things off me?” she asks, and Rose reaches out, pressing the release and letting the cuffs drop.  Rey catches them before they hit the floor, feeling the Force once more.  “He’s in the brig, and if we don’t go after him he’ll die.  It could kill me too.”

“How did this happen?” Rose asks as Poe begins pacing.  Rey shakes her head.

“Snoke took credit, but neither of us believe him,” she admits.

“You’re asking us to trust the former apprentice to that behemoth,” Finn spits.  “Someone who cloaked themselves so much in the Dark Side and brought the entire galaxy to its knees!”

“I’m asking you to trust _me_ ,” she retorts.  “Trust that I know what I’m talking about when I insist we have to rescue him.  And we don’t have time for this!”

“Rey, he uses the _Dark Side_!” Finn shouts, exasperated.  She shakes her head.

“Dark Side, Light Side; they’re just _words_ , Finn!” she retorts, her blood rushing so hot and fast she can hear it.  But the legitimacy of her words echoes, the Force swirling around her in gratification as she reveals its axiom.  “Words made up by people dead long before my spirit touched this world!  There _is no_ Dark Side, there are only people who use the natural power of the galaxy for erroneous dictations!  And there is no Light side!”  She searches his eyes, desperate for him to grasp her revelation.  “There are only people who thought themselves above the rest of the galaxy, using that power for selective incentives for their own gain and hiding behind promises of peace.”

“What are you saying?” Finn asks, an eyebrow quirked, his mouth agape in misunderstanding.  As if this is still about the Jedi and the Sith.

“The Jedi were not without folly,” she explains as best as she can in such a limited time.  “And the Sith were not just malevolent.  It’s not about either of those things.  It’s about _balance_.”  Her eyes well with tears, and she tries desperately to blink them away.  “Finn, he is my balance.”

Cognizance fills Finn’s face, and he staggers back, shaking his head.

“I don’t—"

“You’re in love with him,” Rose interrupts.  It isn’t a question, but her eyes are soft, warm around the edges in a way of complete understanding.  Rey looks at her, shock probably etched deeply in the lines of her face.  Because she’d never admitted it to herself – never allowed herself the luxury of really, truly defining her relationship with Ben Solo.

But it makes sense, doesn’t it?  The way she feels when he looks at her, the way her heart aches when he’s not with her, and races when he is; how relieving it is when she is able to see him, hold him, make sure he’s safe.  How she kisses him and all she can taste is a home she’s never had.  Chin quivering, Rey nods.

Finn looks between the two girls in utter shock.  Even Poe has stopped moving, looking at Rey through narrowed eyes, as though he can see Ben’s supposed manipulation working its way through her mind, clouding her judgment, filling her up with lies.

“I’m not leaving without him,” Rey says, hating the way her voice cracks.  “He saved me from the bounty hunters on Tatooine, he saved me by killing Snoke.”  There’s a collective gasp, the one she’d been waiting for; the one she can only hope turns the tide in her favor.  “It’s all I can do to save him from this.”

There’s a seemingly endless stretch of silence, but the tension is so thick it could be cut with a knife.  Like there’s no air in this small utility closet, like they’ve been sucked into the vacuum of space.  Then, slowly, Poe reaches into a pouch and pulls out a comm link.  Pressing the button, he clears his throat.

“BB-8, you still in the hangar?” he asks.  The droid beeps an affirmative through the comm.  “Alright, buddy, I need you to make your way to the brig.  We got one more stop to make.”  Looking Rey straight in the eyes, he asks, “You think there’s something redeemable in him?”

Relief floods Rey’s chest so fast it takes her breath away.  “I do.”

“Then let’s go get him.”  He takes the cuffs from Rey’s hands and re-attaches them to her wrists, motioning for Finn to check the hallway.  He signals that it’s all clear, and they resume their walk in a tight formation, Finn leading them down a different hallway that’ll take them through the deepest parts of the ship.

“It’s longer, but we’ll be less noticed,” he affirms.  Rey can feel him watching her.  “You’re sure about this?” he finally asks, and she can’t help but smile.

“I’ve never been more sure about anything,” she admits, and he nods stiffly.

"Then I trust you.”

He leads them down a maintenance shaft with its own private lift that takes them a few extra floors into the bowels of the ship.  The further in they get, the less people there are wandering about, as though this section of the ship was used just as practice for sanitation to clean.  Or so Finn stresses as they dive deeper and deeper.  The engines are growing louder as they take one maintenance shaft to another, hopping between lifts, until Finn leads them all the way around one side of the ship, keeping them backed into the shadows of a corridor.  From the outside, they’d be nearly invisible.

He stops them then, listening as someone lets out a guttural cry.

“I want _every guard_ on alert!” a wiry ginger man screams as he brushes past their hiding spot.  Two other Stormtroopers are rushing after him.  “She can’t have gone far!”

Finn creeps out then, ducking around the corner and motioning for Rey to stay back, but Poe and Rose to follow.  They walk out casually, circling around the corner, and Rey hears the distant chatter of voices muffled by masks.  Then, after a moment, two other guards brush by where Rey is crouched.

“It’s all clear,” Rose says, popping her head in the doorway.  “Finn gave them a reference code and told them we were here for the shift change.  They didn’t even question it!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my lovelies!
> 
> Happy Tuesday to all!
> 
> Thank you all so much for all the positive feedback on my fanart. I really appreciate all the positive commentary. You guys are amazing and I love you.
> 
> I get the feeling that Finn didn't know Kylo's real name was Ben - him and Rey were pretty far up there in TFA and I doubt they heard Han yell at him. At least, that's what I think. But, you know. I could be wrong.
> 
> ANYWAY.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. Our space nerds are reunited on Friday, so I hope you look forward to it!
> 
> Love you guys!!!


	32. in which our space nerds are reunited, some anarchy happens, and poe dameron gets a silencer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, Compass by Zella Day pairs well with this chapter.

It’s been hours since Ben was able to feel Rey through the Force, and he’s getting progressively more agitated as time wears on.  The silence in his head is deafening, almost as though the bond never existed in the first place.  If his hands weren’t bound in these gods-forsaken cuffs, he would pummel his way out of this cell and commandeer a blaster to find her himself.

She had to be somewhere on this ship.  Hux wouldn’t have been so smug about revealing Ben’s feelings for her if he didn’t have everything set in motion to publicly execute the both of them.  He thinks he feels her, for a brief moment, but then she’s gone again, ripped away before he can reach out and see if she’s okay.

No one has come back to his cell since Hux left, so at least he doesn’t feel like he’s being babysat.  That would make this entire situation so much worse.  As the hours wear on, he begins to feel dread set in.  What if she isn’t able to break her restraints, or best her assailant?  What will happen then?

He feels her again, as he’s falling deeper into a pit of despair, alive and thrumming in the back of his mind.  He steels away his emotions so she doesn’t see them, then reaches toward her.

Only to be rudely interrupted as the door hisses open.

Ren purses his lips, trying to collapse in on himself against the bunk, as though the energy he used to face Hux earlier was too much.  He looks up, expecting to see the smug grin of the general.

He’s surprised to see the emotionless mask of Kerran Ren staring back at him.

They stare at each other for far too long, before she finally interrupts the silence.

“Master,” she says, reaching back and pulling her helmet off with a hiss.  “I’m relieved to see you awake.”  He takes note of her stance, the bacta patch in her arms, and then his eyes fall to Hux, standing just behind her, just beyond the threshold of the cell.  He stays quiet for an extended period of time, trying to piece the puzzle together himself, before sighing.

“Explain yourself,” he spits, though he already knows, as Kerran takes a step into the room.  She worries her bottom lip between her teeth, her black eyes fixated on him as she dares to move closer.  He puts a hand up, refusing her help, and she stops immediately.

“Your betrayal to the Knights of Ren has been conceded,” she says after a beat.  “You’ve been dishonorably removed from your post as our Master.”

“Fine,” he says, and her eyes widen, as though this wasn’t the reaction she was expecting.  “Not like that’s a title I’d hold for too long anyway, what with my inevitable execution.”  She dares a glance back at Hux, who looks far more proud of himself than he had the right.

“Please, Master,” she says, taking another step toward him, and Ren has to stop himself from throwing her against the back wall.  “Allow me to replace your bacta patch.”

“For what reason?  If I’m set to die.”  She watches him for too long, giving away everything she’d never said to him about how she felt – feelings he’d never returned.  It’s almost laughable now, that she’d expect some type of reaction to her feelings in this situation.  She takes a slow breath, met with his unforgiving gaze.

“I thought it best you not be in so much pain, to make you presentable for the holo-vid.”  Ben stares at her like she’s sprouted a second set of lekku.

“Do you now answer to Jayce Ren, Kerran?” Ben asks, narrowing his eyes at the slight Togruta woman, boring into her mind for an answer as her emotions flitted from shock to revulsion to shame.  Her jaw shakes as she tries to form a response.

“Master, please…”

“Get out,” he hisses in response.  Her eyes widen, and she braves another step forward.  He thrusts the Force at her now, throwing her against the doorway, where she hits the metal with a loud _clang_ as her armor makes contact.  “GET!  OUT!”

She scrambles to her feet, bows once, then pushes past Hux, who watches as Ben collapses back against the bench, as though using the Force on Kerran had drained him completely.  Only Ben’s feigned panting fills the room for a stretch of time.

"I suppose their betrayal comes as a shock to you,” Hux eventually deadpans, and Ren looks up at him through narrowed eyes.

“I suppose it does,” he grunts, allowing Hux this one victory.  Truly, he never believed his Knights would be so quick to cast him out, taking the word of a lowly malevolent worm like Hux over his own.  But he supposed there was no true explanation for what had taken place in that throne room outside of his duplicity.  Though a nagging in his mind told him that the murder of Snoke wasn’t the real issue.  Something else had spurred this betrayal.

“It was simple, really, to sway most of them,” Hux says, sashaying into Ben’s cell.  “Only one was truly loyal to you to a fault – the older fellow, from Snoke’s original guard.”  Hux clicks his tongue, shaking his head.  “He was properly disposed of, so no worries there.”

Ben is on his feet in an instant, fury enveloping him like a familiar friend as his forehead flies forward of its own accord, making harsh contact with Hux’s nose before the man has a chance to react.

Hux stumbles back, clutching his nose as blood _gushes_ from his nostrils, the hatred so pronounced in his eyes that it’s like someone lit a torch behind each of them.  He immediately pulls his blaster, aiming it on Ben, who is willing him to fire.  He can deflect the bolt so easily.  Send it right back.  Kill the bastard in front of him who killed his Knight.

They stand for an immeasurable amount of time, a battle of wills, seeing who might back down first.  Then, Hux clicks the safety of the blaster off.  Ben plants his feet, preparing himself.

A Stormtrooper rushes in then, and for a brief moment Ben thinks he’s been ordered to break up any potential fights.

“Sir, we just got word that the girl escaped,” he says.  Hux narrows his eyes at Ren, his hands shaking with anger, the blaster trained on him lowering infinitesimally.

“Word from who?”

“Jayce Ren, Sir,” the trooper responds, and Hux throws his head back, screaming in frustration as he turns on his heel and exits the cell.

“I want _every guard_ on alert,” Ben hears him shout before the door hisses shut.  Ben takes a moment to breathe before he collapses back on the bench, the exhaustion he’s been pretending to have suddenly enveloping him.

His Knights swore their allegiance to him the night they defected from and destroyed Skywalker’s Jedi Temple.  He led them to Malachor, practically delivered five of the most powerful Force-users in the galaxy to Snoke on a silver platter, where he ripped apart each of their minds, forced them to duel until they collapsed, then crowned Ben Solo the winner.  Stripped them of their identities and forced them to mold and bend into what Snoke desired from his Knights.

And they stayed beside him still.

Because of his legacy.

Because he was a Skywalker, heir-apparent to Darth Vader.

And now, they’d turned against him.  All except the one Knight who had no reason to stand beside him.  Geryn.  The original Knight of Ren.

Ben ran a shaky hand through his hair.

They must have seen how Snoke was murdered so ruthlessly, but that alone wouldn’t sway their loyalty.  No, it was his decision to dispose of their Master by saving the Jedi girl.  The Jedi, whom had tried to kill Ben Solo, who had forced each of them to quell any and all emotion until they were practically bursting at the seams, who had stood against everything the Knights of Ren stand for.

The opposing darkness.

Kylo Ren had killed some of that darkness to preserve the light.  That’s what his Knights had seen.  What they disparaged him for.

Killing Snoke to save Rey had ultimately caused him to sacrifice his Knights; an unprecedented event, despite how much sense it made.

He found it was a choice he’d make again.

A few minutes later, the door hisses open again, and Ben jumps to his feet, not willing to stand down against Hux any longer.  If Hux was going to kill him, he would put up far more of a fight.  He’d come too far to give up now.

Instead, Rey walks through, her mess of brown hair and wide hazel eyes making her look every bit of an angel, and Ben nearly collapses with relief.  She turns to a Stormtrooper just behind her, who has a blaster trained on Ben’s chest, and he clicks the Force-suppression wrist cuffs open.

She floods his mind all at once, her relief to find him safe so loud it nearly makes his ears ring.  She steps into the cell, disregarding the second Stormtrooper that tries to pull her back.

“You’re okay,” she breathes, popping his own cuffs open with the Force and taking him all in.  “I thought for sure they’d have killed you by now.”

“So easily?” he asks, smirking as he rolls his wrists to relieve the tension that had built up after so long stuck in a single position.  “They wanted to publicly execute.  Make me a spectacle for the murder of Snoke.”  He drinks her in, and despite her haggard appearance, she seems unharmed, which reassures him.  Jayce hadn’t hurt her, only suppressed her Force abilities, which he realizes is why he couldn’t contact her.  Still, he asks, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she smiles.

“Rey,” one of the Stormtroopers says.  She takes a moment, searching Ben’s eyes, before she nods and turns back around, pulling him along.  He stops her, wrapping a hand lightly around her wrist.

“Do you have a plan?” he asks, and she looks at him a bit nervously.

“We’re sort of improvising here,” she says.  “We need to get off this ship, though – get away from the Knights.”  Ben shakes his head.

“I intend on killing them, Rey,” he says darkly, and she blows out a sigh.

“I know you do, though I implore you to reconsider.”  She’s shaking her head.  He looks down at her, trying to calculate time in his mind.  If he’s right, BB-9E should have finished implementing his datafile some time ago, which means they didn’t have a lot of time to make it off this ship.  As soon as they disembarked, the Knights would be after them – the only true way Jayce Ren could take over as master is if he killed Kylo Ren in battle.

"We need to get planetside somewhere, then,” he says, and she nods, relieved.

“ _Rey_ ,” the trooper says again, and this time when Rey pulls him along, he follows.

“Friends of yours?” he asks, albeit a bit sarcastically.  She shoots him a glare.

“Of Rey’s.  Not yours,” one of the troopers fills in, and Ben looks down at him incredulously.  That voice sounded awfully familiar, even muffled behind the filter mask of the Stormtrooper armor.  Rey elbows the trooper as they jog toward the exit of the brig.

Sirens begin wailing overhead, alerting the entirety of the Ascendancy to an aerial attack, and they feel the ship’s engines begin whirring beneath their feet.

“What’s happening?” the smallest Stormtrooper yells.

“We’re on the move!” the other one, the familiar one responds.  The ship shudders as it breaks atmo, then again as the TIE fleet takes to the skies.

The small orange and white droid that had alluded Ben on Takodana suddenly slides into view, rolling alongside the five of them as they rush to the turbolift.

“They’re moving the battle off-planet!” the last Stormtrooper yells.  “Leia’s called in the reinforcements!”  The familiar name makes Ben stop in his tracks, just before the lift, and accidentally yanks Rey to a stop as well.  She whirs around, her eyes desperate for just a moment before they take in his face.

“They’re Resistance?” Ben asks, unable to stop the pang of betrayal as it pierces through him.  Rey watches him warily for a moment, and he can’t stand that look on her face.  Of course, the droid should have made it obvious.  He knew it belonged to one of them.

“They saved me,” she reminds him gently.  “And now they’re helping me save you.”  She tugs his hand gently, trying to urge him onto the lift where the other three Resistance members are waiting.  “Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” he answers immediately, because there is no other response in this moment.

“Then trust me,” she says, and after a deep breath, he follows, squeezing into the lift.

He can feel the hatred palpable in the air, the two blasters trained on his back, and Ben has to assume one of them is FN-2187.  When he’d explored Rey’s mind, her new friend – _Finn,_ she called him – had been a centerpiece in her new life.  He’d barely managed to squash the jealousy as it flared to life, but now, with the boy so close, it wasn’t entirely easy.  He had no idea who could be behind the other two masks, but he realized after a moment that only one of the other members of their party was angry that Rey had chosen to save him.

As if on cue, the smallest of the Stormtroopers looks up at him.  “I’m Rose,” she says, and she sounds genuine, although she’s definitely circumspect.  He looks down at her and nods once, not exactly sure what to do in this situation.  Ben couldn’t recall ever having to introduce himself to someone.

Rey brushes her fingers against the back of Ben’s hand, silently filling him in on where she’s been and who she’s been with.  He turns, giving her one discreet nod of understanding, though it only ignites the fury within him.

As the turbolift ascended, Rey looked around at each of their faces, clearing her throat to break the awkward tension that had worked its way between them.  “We need a ship.”

“My Upsilon should be prepped,” Ben responds instantly.  “Though I’m not sure how easy it will be to get there.”

“The entire ship has been in chaos since we got here,” FN-2187 supplies, though his voice is strained, like he can’t believe he’s trying to have a casual conversation with Kylo Ren.  “We might be able to slip through without a lot of attention.”  Still, Ben smirks, glancing down at Rey, who catches him from the corner of her eye.

“Then my plan is already in motion,” he says softly, and her eyes widen, then narrow into an accusatory glare.

“What did you do?”  His smirk grows wider, but he doesn’t respond.  She tugs harshly on his sleeve.  “Ben Solo, what did you do?”  He watches her for a moment, tuning out Rose and the third Stormtrooper as they whisper to FN-2187 about Rey’s unintentional reveal of his full given name.  He couldn’t even be mad at her.

“I decided to kill the past,” he finally says, and her eyes widen.

“Did you say Ben _Solo_?” the third Stormtrooper asks, and Rey shoots him a look that has him immediately quiet.

Finally, the lift stops, the doors graciously opening for them to step out of the claustrophobic space.  Ben takes a moment to look around.

Truly, there was chaos.  No one paid them a second glance as they ran, troopers grappling with officers, yelling, screaming at one another, demanding retribution for a punch to the face, only to have a swift kick in the jaw land instead.  Platoon captains being surrounded by their soldiers, blasters trained as they demanded surrender.  Flags burned, and in the distance, mixed with all of the X-Wings darting back and forth, Ben watched TIE fighters chasing one another as well.

Rey has a tight grip on his hand, disbelief and shock rolling off her in waves, as Ben takes in the glorious anarchy.

“Where’s your ship?” Rose shouts over the cacophony of noise.  He gestures in the general direction, motioning for them to follow him.

“Kylo Ren!” one of the officers shouts, and Ben doesn’t even throw him a glance as he pulls the Force and uses it to shove the man to the side.  He flies backward and out of Ben’s sight.

“Didn’t you get shot in the chest earlier!?” FN-2187 hollers, and Ben casts him a glance.

“I did,” he responds simply.  Though no more is said, Ben is sure more questions will be asked later.  Questions he’s hoping Rey will be willing to answer.

They grow closer to his Upsilon, and he stops, pulling Rey to a halt.  “You take my ship and get out of here.  I’m going to get in the Silencer and offer you cover while you escape!”

"No,” she says, barley even deliberating his offer.  “Where you go, I go.”

“You have to realize how ridiculous that sounds,” he retorts, and her face scrunches up in anger.  “Get yourself out of here, get safe.”

“Any First Order TIE will be shot down by the Resistance.”  The other three have stopped, listening to them as they bicker back and forth like children.

"Do you have so little faith in me?” he asks, unable to stop the smirk as it forms on his face, though it twists into more of a sneer.

“Don’t you dare, Ben!”

“Just do what I ask for once!”

“Guys, I don’t mean to interrupt,” the third Resistance member says, “but we have company!”  A small hoard of Stormtroopers is approaching, clearly still loyal to the Order, blasters pointed on the five of them.  “BB-8!”

The droid beeps happily, tilting its head back and springing open its midsection.  Rey’s lightsaber hilts pop up, already separated, and Rey snatches them both out of the air.  She tosses Ben one without a second thought.  He weighs it in his hands, the hilt longer and more narrow than his own, but he ignites it and listens to the crystal within as it hums in anticipation for battle.  He can feel the crystal she holds, as well, beating in perfect harmony with his as they each twirl the purple blades.

The blaster bolts rain down on them then, and Ben pushes out with the Force, deflecting some back with the saber in his hands while simultaneously stopping others.  He glances at Rey, watches with muted pleasure as she does the same, using the technique he taught her on Ahch-To to stop the bolts mid-air.  It takes her a half-second longer to concentrate on sending them back, but she has a satisfied smile stretch across her face every time she does.

The other three are also working their blasters, quite expertly, when a cascade of blaster fire comes from above them, taking out the remaining troopers.

The five of them look up, seeing a multitude of Stormtroopers, all dressed down and helmetless, aiming at their own blasters at those still true to the Order.  Suddenly on the opposite side of a war they’d been training for their whole lives.  Everyone else is struck – FN-2187 seemed to be the first in a long line of defectors.  Ben is on the move, keeping Rey’s saber lit as he yanks on her arm, running through the showers of gunfire.

“Get to the Upsilon!” he shouts again, his mouth set in a determined scowl.  “I’ll be right behind you!”  It’s just a few yards away now, and Rey looks at it for a moment before meeting his gaze with her own set determination.

“I swear to the stars, Ben, if you die today because some kriffing X-Wing pilot took you out, I will be _livid!_ ” she shouts back, and he can’t help the smile that breaks out over his features.  “You won’t have peace in your death, I promise you that!”

“I don’t expect anything less,” he says, pulling her in and pressing his lips to her forehead.  He pulls away first, for once, and he can see her eyes dancing with fear.  “Stay safe,” he says, squeezing her hand in his before he gives her back the other half of her saberstaff.

Their shocked and somewhat appalled audience closes the distance.

“Ben is going to give us cover while we escape,” Rey says to the other three.  Each of them finally discards their helmets, and Ben is met with a glare from FN-2187 – unsurprising – the detached look of the Resistance pilot that he doesn’t imagine remembers him fondly, and the wide stare of a small girl with unruly hair and a kind face.

“He’s taking a TIE?” the pilot asks.  Dameron, Ben’s mind fills in after a moment.

“I have prototype TIE Silencers that offer more firepower than a regular ship,” Ben says after a moment.  “I’m more recognizable, but,” he shrugs nonchalantly as he trails off.  Dameron looks at him with a curious eye.

“You have more than one?” he asks, and Ben nods his assent, earning him a smile.  He turns and looks at the other two troopers-in-disguise.  “I’m going to follow him.  I’ll be more useful to you guys in the air.”  He hands the small girl the comm in his hand.  “Let Leia know me and Ren are in the Silencers, so the X-Wings don’t take us out!”  Ben is somewhat put off when Dameron simply assumes he can use his ships, but he reigns in the anger before it can fester itself.  With Rey in every danger, it’s better to give them more coverage.  Or so he tells himself.

“Where are they stationed?” Rey asks Dameron, though her eyes don’t leave Ben.

“The third moon,” he supplies.  She nods and, taking one last look, starts running toward the Upsilon with the two other members and the small droid in tow.  Dameron turns his attention to Ben, a distrustful look in his eye.  “Where are these ships?”

Leading him through the carnage as fast as his legs can carry him, Ben takes the pilot through a narrow corridor into his personal hangar, where the civil war hasn’t quite reached.  There are exactly four Silencers, though one is half-torn apart by Ben himself, trying to install a couple of new cannons.   He presses his hand to one of the newly-updated ones, the hatch hissing open.

"It shouldn’t take more than thirty seconds to warm up,” Ben supplies for the pilot, who’s standing a good ten feet away, as though that could stop Ben from killing him.  “Guns are the left, missiles are right – there are six of those.”  Dameron nods as he climbs into the cockpit.  “Hux will know immediately as soon as we lift off, so he’ll train more fire on you.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Dameron says as he slides into the seat.  “I didn’t come this far just for Hugs to take me out with his pawns.”

Ben smirks as he rushes over to his own Silencer – the better choice between the two, though he doesn’t tell Dameron that.  He reaches up and presses his hand to the panel – he’d rigged the ships to only respond to his fingerprint, so Hux couldn’t tear them apart if he wanted.

Dameron’s engines are whirring to life as Ben goes through his preflight checklist.  He flips a switch, and his own ship hums familiarly beneath him.  He doesn’t spare the pilot a glance as he pulls back and bursts through the hangar, but he can feel him right on his tail.

Surprisingly, as soon as they start methodically taking out the TIE fighters pursuing X-Wings (it’s impossible to tell otherwise who might be on their side) he feels a small Force projection from his Silencer companion as the pilot expertly maneuvers through the wreckage.  Naturally pulling the Force against him to take aim and blast the ships out of the air.

He sees Rey’s Upsilon as it disembarks from the hangar, and he can feel her excitement at finally piloting the thing herself.  So easy to please, he takes up her rear, shooting down three fighters as they attempt to swarm her.  But no X-Wings are attacking him or them, which is a relief.

“REN!” Hux’s voice shouts through the comm he’d forgotten to turn off.  Ben ignores him, diverting attention from the Upsilon as it soars toward the moon.  He knows, as soon as they land, the base General Organa made will probably become a target for a land assault.

“Uh, yeah, General Hugs, is it?” Dameron’s voice filters through the comm channel, as well.  “Sorry, just so you know, the Resistance is gearing up to completely kick your ass, so if you could stay off this channel, I really need to concentrate.”  Ben almost chuckles.  He might like this pilot.

Dameron circles around Ben, taking three TIE fighters out that had been trailing him as Ben fires on two that were trailing a separate X-Wing pilot.  It was strange, firing on his own men and allowing the X-Wings to persevere.

“You’ll pay for this, Ren, if it’s the last thin—”

“No, I was being serious,” Dameron cuts Hux off.  “This is a really tense situation for us.”  Ben rolls his Silencer as he slices through the air, shooting down two TIEs that had been chasing Dameron for a little too long.  “So, please, your silence will speak volumes, I promise.”

 _“Ben, we’re breaking atmo on the moon now!”_ Rey shouted into his mind.  _“I’ll be up there to join you soon!”_

“Stay on the ground,” he says aloud, knowing she can hear him.  “Your landing will cause a convergence, and I’m right behind you, but I’m covering the pilot.  You should have plenty of cover down there.”  He feels her acceptance, her awe that he’s choosing to stay and help one of her friends, until—

 _“Kriff!”_ she shouts, both out loud and into his mind.  _“They nicked a wing, we’re going down for an emergency landing!”_   His fists clench, and he grabs the comm.

“Dameron,” he says, knowing full well that Hux can hear him and not really giving a shit.  He parries back and takes out two more TIE fighters with a single blast.

“Yeah, Ren?”

“The Upsilon took a hit, I’m headed down now.”

“You got it, boss!” he shouts back excitedly, clearly enjoying himself in Ben’s Silencer.  “Make sure my droid is okay!”

Ben doesn’t respond, looping back and dodging through the heavy artillery toward the moon.  He takes out enemy TIE fighters on his way down, keeping his bond with Rey open.  He feels her crash into the ground, head thrown back against the seat, then forward against the control dash.  His head aches with her pain as the Upsilon skids a number of yards before it crashes into a grove of trees.

His Silencer is much faster than the Upsilon, breaking atmo quickly.  The battle has already made its way here, TIE fighters and X-Wings dodging through the sky, shooting one another, and it’s even harder to tell who’s on whose side from this vantage point.

He sees the smoke rising from the crashed Upsilon and punches it, flying over the trees and making somewhat of a daring stop.  The G-Force throws his head into the seat as he pulls back, but the Silencer lands beautifully.

The hatch of his ship opens just as the ramp of the Upsilon does, the metal groaning under the pressure.  He hops out, ignoring the throbbing in his temples as FN-2187 and Rose rush out of the ship, followed by Dameron’s droid.  His own droid comes barreling toward him, as well, circling around his legs for a moment before it takes up his flank.

Finally, Rey walks out just as he reaches the ramp, a small gash in her forehead and his lightsaber in her hand.

“Good to see you relatively unscathed,” she says with a huge grin.  Ben doesn’t respond, his hand reaching up to wipe away the trickle of blood that was oozing down the side of her face.  “Don’t bother with that.  It’s just a flesh wound.”  He feels the fury as it courses through him, but Rey doesn’t seem to care as she throws her arms around his neck.

It takes a moment, but he pulls her close, exhaling a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.  She’s real and vital against him, mostly unharmed, and now he has a real opportunity to make sure she stays that way.

Pulling away, she hands him his lightsaber.  “Found this hidden in the crew cabin,” she says with a knowing smile.  “Convenient that it was there, isn’t it?”  He doesn’t respond, bending down to his BB unit, who immediately whirs so he’s facing the correct control panel.  “Yeah, you didn’t tell me we’d have company, by the way.  Nearly scared me half to death.”  She puts an affectionate hand on the droid’s head.

“And yet here you stand,” he responds, popping the droid’s hatch and pulling the correct switch to reveal the number pad.  He types in his numeric code, and the droid beeps the correct notes.  Rey and the other two watch him curiously as the BB unit’s front hatch pops open, revealing a small remote that Ben takes out carefully.  Looking up at where the Ascendancy is stationed, so many miles over their heads, he smiles to himself before he clicks the button.

Rey looks up at the Ascendancy, as well, for just a moment before her eyes are back on him.  It’s getting harder to see in the dimming light as night approaches.  “Ben, what did you do?”

“In about four minutes,” he says, finally resting his eyes on her, “the entire computer administration designed to preserve the Ascendancy will fail, overtaken with a virus that I had BB-9E implement just before I was captured.”  Her eyes widen.  “Another two minutes after that, thanks to General Hux for invading my personal archives to get that security footage, the rest of the fleet will fall victim to that same virus, infecting the First Order computer operations from the inside out."

“A complete infrastructural meltdown,” Rose breathes behind them, her wide eyes staring at him with a mix of awe and fear.  “The systems that control the engine, the projectors, the hyperspace chambers, the shields…”

“All of it,” he agrees.  “The anti-gravitational turbines will be forced to shut down—”

“Which will cause the ships to be pulled in by the gravity of the moons,” Rose finishes for him, her excitement mounting.  “They’ll all crash.”

“What about the emergency generators?” FN-2187 asks, and Ben purses his lips.  He hates talking to this many people at the same time.  He focuses on Rey, who has never looked at him with so much admiration.

“They’ll only be functional to make an emergency landing,” Rose answers.  “But if the fleet has intel when the shields go down…”  She pulls out the comm in her pocket, having shed the rest of the Stormtrooper armor, and begins running toward the makeshift base a couple hundred yards away.  “General Organa!” she shouts into the comm.  FN-2187 gives Ben one last knowing look before he takes off after her.

“We should go with them,” Rey says, trying to pull his hand along, but he keeps his feet firmly planted on the ground.  “Ben?”

“I’m not…”  He grits his teeth, looking at the rebel base.  The onslaught of emotion rushing through him was almost overwhelming in its intensity, flashes of fear and anger and longing pulsating with every rapid beat of his heart.

Beyond those haphazard canvas walls was a woman he’d taken everything from.  Her husband, her brother.  Even her son.  Nearly her life, as well, though he should have known Leia Organa would not be killed so easily.

It didn’t matter that he’d been unable to fire those missiles at the Raddus.  His men had done it, on his order, exposing her to vast amounts of solar radiation that he couldn’t believe hadn’t done her in by itself.  But he could feel her Force, bustling about beneath that tent, a mix of stress and pride.

He’d hardened himself over years of intense mental endurance training to wall off the emotions he felt when he thought of Leia Organa.  He buried that need for his mother long ago, before he even went to follow the voices in his head that led him to Snoke.  She’d chosen to abandon him, leave him in the hands of her brother, after arguing with his father for years over whether or not he was a monster.  And he’d felt like a monster, reflecting back on all of the things he did to her.

He remembers, unexpectedly, the last time he wrote her a letter – using the calligraphy set she’d given him for this tenth birthday while training under Luke.  He remembers mentioning that Jedi training is nothing like he expected it to be, and though it had been years since he began, he asked if it would be okay if he came home.

She’d written back, telling him to give it more time – that things would be different once he became a master.

Ben had never responded.  Over the next six standard months, she’d written more and more often, begging him to write her back.  He refused, too caught up in the anger he’d been trying desperately to bury for so many years.

Then, Luke attacked him in his sleep, and he knew he had no home to go back to.

He’s pulled back to reality when Rey lays a gentle hand on his arm, a soft smile on her face.

“It’s okay,” she says.  “We’ll stay here, wait for them to come to us.”  He looks up at the Ascendancy once more, waiting for Hux and the officers to realize what had happened.  It’d still be another two minutes before the full effects of his coup were registered in the computers systems.

“The Knights will follow us here,” he tells her.  “Hux will have informed Jayce Ren of my escape, and it won’t take the five of them long to realize I’m not part of the aerial battle any longer.”

“He has Force-suppression,” Rey says hesitantly.

“He won’t use it,” Ben responds confidently.  “The technique follows a bubble perimeter around him, can’t be adhered onto specific targets.  He’d cut off you and I, but every other Knight as well.”  BB-9E circles around the two of them, and Ben suddenly remembers.

“Oh, Nine-ee,” he says, and the droid beeps a response.  Ben reaches down, yanking a small file stick from his boot.  The droid immediately pops open a small storage hatch, and Ben drops it in.  “Take that to General Organa, of the Resistance.”  The droid confirms the command, then whirls around.  The other BB droid beeps casual conversation at Ben’s droid as they roll toward the canvas tents together.

“What was that?” Rey asks.

“An encrypted data file full of First Order archives,” he responds, watching the two droids to make sure they aren’t gunned down.  All of the ships soaring above seemed far too focused on each other to launch any sort of ground assault, TIE Fighters and X-Wings alike trying to figure out who was friend and who was foe.  It’d be somewhat funny, if the situation weren’t so dire.

“Why?” Rey asks, a little breathless, and he looks at her.

“It’s a lot of useful information they’ll need.”  He’s shaking his head as her next thought flies through his mind.  “I’m not recommending the reinstating of the Republic – it’s a failed system, and I won’t change my mind about that.”  Her cheeks puff out in that way he adores when he knows she wants to argue.  “However, I outlined a pretty secure foundation to begin rebuilding something new.”

“Your ex-colleague told me about all of the regulations you’ve been trying to pass,” she says with a smile so warm it makes the sun pale in comparison.  “You wanted to do good for the galaxy.”  Ben has nothing to say, so he elects to not respond, watching as the Ascendancy finally begins it’s too-fast descent toward the moon.  He’s imagining the panic, the confusion, as all of those people run around furiously trying to find a solution.

There is no solution.  He made sure of that.

The X-Wings are on the ship in a moment, causing huge explosions to the vulnerable First-Class Destroyer.

He barely has time to bask in the glory of imminent defeat.

A sleek black Upsilon similar to the one Rey had crashed is barreling toward them, skimming over the grass fast enough to cause the blades to ripple like water.  The five familiar Force signatures jump out at him from through the thick steel walls.

“Here they come,” Ben says to Rey, who twists her saberstaff back together and takes an offensive stance.

The ship’s ramp descends before they’ve come to a complete landing, irking Ben.  That was one way to fuck up a perfectly good gangplank.

It takes a moment, but each of the five walk down the ramp, two standing dutifully on either side of the steel incline to allow Jayce to make a garish grandiose entrance, holding his electrified pike.  The weapon was one Ben had helped him build – when the lightsaber would never function quite right, the crystal Jayson Naberrie had found on Ilum not reacting to him the way Ben Solo’s crystal had – the blade was weak and easily overpowered.  The pike was made out of the same field generator and metal as the weapons of Snoke’s Praetorian Guard, so it could hold up against a saber.  He had far too much confidence in himself at the present moment, holding the weapon loosely at his side.  This battle has already been won in his eyes.  Ben’s hand curls around the hilt of his saber, the crystal humming at his proximity.

“Kylo,” Jayce calls out nonchalantly, as though he’s greeting an old friend.  As though he hadn’t forced himself into Ben’s title as Master, taken the woman he cared for hostage and threatened to torture her for information before he killed her.  Ben doesn’t dignify him with a response.  “You seem rather upset.”

“You’re a pig,” Rey spits out at him, taking Ben by surprise, though he shouldn’t be.  She was the most headstrong person he knew.  She’d called him a snake and a murderer when they first met across galaxies, as well.  “You lost.  We escaped the Ascendancy, destroyed it from within.”

“My victory was never secure in becoming the Supreme Leader,” Jayce responds, giving a non-committal shrug.  “I never desired such a title.  I’d been more than willing to give it to General Hux, truth be told.”

“Then why?” Ben asks, keeping his voice low to avoid betraying any emotion other than rage.  “Too tired of always coming in second place?”  Ben’s taunting him, willing more information than necessary to buy time with Rey.

He never doubted that his Knights, teamed up together, could destroy him.  Looking down at Rey, he feels a tiny flutter of hope in his chest that he might buy her enough time to escape.  But they would kill him – it appears to be their driving desire.

“You were never better than me, Kylo,” Jayce sneers from behind the vocoder in his mask.  “You were always the favorite is all.  First with Master Luke.  Then with Master Snoke.”

“So, it’s a jealousy thing?” Rey asks Ben, who has to purse his lips to keep from cracking a smile.  “Seems rather juvenile if you ask me.”

“You’ll do well to keep your mouth shut in the face of your demise, Jedi whore,” Jayce says coolly.  Ben tenses around the hilt of his lightsaber, igniting it.  This insolent flea of a man had no place insulting Rey, whom Ben had no doubt could best the knight in a one-on-one duel.  Rey follows suit, igniting her own saberstaff, and Ben is momentarily awed by the sheer power the blades emit.  She was so ridiculously powerful, he wondered if she knew.

“You should keep your tongue in your mouth where it belongs before someone elects to cut it off,” Rey shouts.  The mask covering his face does nothing to camouflage the disgust he feels – nearly palpable as it crackled in the air.

“I’ll not be talked down to by the likes of you,” Jayce says, finally bringing his pike up.  The other four Knights follow suit, holding their weapons at the offensive – Kerran with her electrified scimitar, Yavin holding a guandao Ben had never seen before, Urtey having a more advanced version of the electrified baton that Hux issued to Stormtroopers, and Chrinda holding her giant cleaver loosely against one shoulder.

Ben met each of the cold, impassive masked stares of his former Knights.  The only people in the galaxy Ben Solo had ever considered friends.  The five people who had stood beside him during the betrayal of Luke Skywalker, battled against the other Padawans in the face of the Temple’s destruction.  Stood beside him during their individual torture at the hands of Snoke, because they all knew Ben’s sacrifice was far greater.  Snoke wanted Ben to be a tool, to become the next Darth Vader – if he’d burned the other Knights, he’d submerged Ben in the fire, until he was a malleable metal Snoke could construct into the ultimate weapon.

None of them cared that he killed the former Supreme Leader.  None of them would care that he was deconstructing the First Order from the inside out.  No, for as many years as it had been since they left the Jedi, they’d relied on each other and no one else.

Until Rey.

If she’d elected to remain by his side that fateful day aboard the Supremacy, Ben imagines the Knights would have come to accept her as one of their own – she was powerful, a strong leader who knew firsthand the scandalous essence of the Jedi.

Now, though, word of her Jedi training had gotten through the galaxy, becoming a beacon of light and hope.  Rumors had begun spreading – after her initial meeting with Brennisca of Naboo – that Rey was contemplating opening a Jedi Academy of her own.  He hadn’t had the chance to confront her about this recent development, but he knew the Knights had been plotting his downfall prior to such gossip.

“Jayson,” he called calmly, watching as the Knight bristled at the sound of his old name – the name he’d shed more successfully than Ben had.  “Were you monitoring the bounty hunter channels, as well?”  A pause, then Jayce shook his head.

“You were on Tatooine with _her_ ,” he hissed.  “You saved the life of a Jedi.”

“I am _not_ a Jedi!” Rey shouted back, but Ben shoots her a pointed look, and she shuts her mouth.

“Everything we fought for, _Ben,”_ he hisses the name.  “Everything that happened at the Temple.  You threw it away.  For a Jedi, trained by the very person who betrayed us.”

Ben has to scoff, moving into an offensive position.  He no longer has the desire to endure another moment of this conversation.  His Knights, though trained as Jedi, were hard-formed by Snoke to abandon any and all compassion.  Jayce, specifically, could never understand the depth of Ben’s feelings for the girl at his side.

Jayce moves, as well, shifting his minor foot forward, a stance Ben knows well.  He would parry first, make it look like he was going to attack Ben, then swerve his attention at the last moment and attack Rey.  Hoping to distract Ben long enough to be cut down by one of the other knights.  This man had no idea how strong Rey was.

“I have no desire to fight you, Kylo,” Jayce says.  “If you hand over the Jedi girl, you can reclaim a seat amongst the Knights of Ren.”

“Until Hux kills me,” Ben says sarcastically.  Jayce laughs, the noise coming out distorted and ugly through the vocoder.

“That petulant fly would never go against our combined forces,” he responds.

Ben simply shakes his head.  “I have no desire to betray my true loyalties.”  He sees Rey look up at him, eyes wide, but he keeps his eyes trained on the Knights, knowing they’ll charge at any moment.  He shoots Rey a warning through the bond, telling her to keep her eyes forward.  She complies, pursing her lips, and he realizes that that’s how they’re going to make it out of this alive.

Jayce twitches, then charges a moment later, doing just as Ben expected – aiming for Ben, then switching at the last moment, diverting to Rey.  Ben warns her through the bond, and she’s there to meet Jayce’s strike, her lilac blade crackling against the pike with a sickening hiss.

Ben can’t keep focused on Rey, the Force rippling around him as Yavin charges.  He ducks, launching himself backward as the metal blade whizzes just over his head, then swings around and brings his saber up to meet Urtey’s baton as it swung from the right.  He pulls back and arcs up, trying to disengage Yavin’s guandao, but the Knight dodges at the last moment, and Ben barely nicks the blade.

The other two Knights haven’t engaged at all, which is only half surprising.  Chrinda is a Mirilian healer, so her area of expertise was better kept preserved.  Kerran, though – she was a warrior.  An arena, the pressure of battle, the heat of the moment – that’s where Kerran thrived.  And her anger with him was palpable even from this distance – her disdain, her fury for finding out the feelings she’d coveted for so long now belonged to someone else.  She wanted to kill him more than anyone, more than Jayce.

So why wasn’t she attacking?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my lovelies!
> 
> Sorry for the long chapter - I went in to look for a way to split it, but I wrote so much from Ben's perspective and there was no good break. Hopefully you guys don't mind, since there's so much that happens.
> 
> I'm pretty sure that Poe would pay literally anything to keep one of the Silencers. Those things are awesome - I did a bit of research on the flight patterns and how they work, and they seem super cool. Also I'm pretty sure Ben only had one but whatever.
> 
> Our space nerds is boutta fight the Knights next chapter, and it's gonna be awesome.
> 
> ANYWAY things are heating up. The First Order is collapsing - quite literally - and our smart and secretive Ben is behind it all. Sucks to suck, doesn't it? Lmfao.
> 
> Thank you guys again for all of the lovely comments and kudos and feedback. Holy shit, I have the most incredible readers of all time. Leave me more! Comments, kudos, questions - you name it, I want it.
> 
> I fucking love you guys.
> 
> Also Tuesday next week might be somewhat complicated, so I apologize if I don't update. I'll try and get it out Monday if Tuesday is just impossible, but otherwise I'll see you guys next Friday!


	33. in which our space nerds get in a laser sword fight with other weapons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, I'll Come Back For You by Max Schneider pairs well with this chapter.
> 
> Also, I'll Be Good by James Young - when you get to Ben's perspective.

Rey launches herself at Jayce as he circles around, trying to dig her saberstaff into the flesh of his back, but the pike is there to meet her.  He twists it around, spinning the spear and yanking on her blade to disengage her.  She twists with it, rolling the balls of her feet and pulling the blade back before the Knight can take her weapon.

She can feel Ben through the bond, fighting two of the Knights, his mind stretching out in every direction as he considers the battle.  She’s always amazed that he’s able to do that – there was no singularity within him during conflict.  He was able to think of a hundred different outcomes.

Rey could assume that’s how he’s survived as long as he has.

Dodging a jab from the pike, Rey twirls around, splitting her saberstaff in half with a satisfying crackle, turning one weapon into two.  She charges forward, bringing one blade down, and Jayce’s pike is there to block.  The other saber glides through the air, and Jayce twists his pike, nearly making Rey lose her first blade as he moves to block the second.

She blocks his next three attacks with pointed accuracy, after Ben had divulged Jayce Ren’s fighting style through the bond to her.  He was better than he had been, the last time they’d sparred, but Rey had an advantage, knowing prematurely how he fought.

Unfortunately, she’d lifted much of her own stances and styles from Ben, which Jayce eventually noticed.

“You fight like Kylo,” he remarked when she brought her two blades up to block his pike.

“You fight like a toad,” she spits back, spinning her blades in an attempt to wrestle his pike free from his hands.  He spins around, holding fast, and they break apart, each falling back a few yards.  They circle each other, both low in defensive positions; two predators looking for an opening on their respective prey.  He twirls his pike nonchalantly, almost as though he hasn’t reveled in the idea of killing her for the entirety of their duel.  Like this is just another sparring session.

Her eyes glance over his shoulder at Ben, who’s managing to hold his own against the two Knights, though neither of them are pulling back from the barrage of attacks.  There’s a disconnect between them, the bond open but not thrumming the way it normally does, and it makes her uncomfortable.  They were separated somehow, a rift between them when they didn’t have their backs to one another.  She’s afraid, she can’t help but contemplate this as he dodges attack after attack.  It’s a mere moment, her worry for him stretching across the bond, and he doesn’t even look back at her when he acknowledges her emotions.

_PAY ATTENTION!_

A minor slip, barely a second, but suddenly she’s being charged by not one, but two Knights – her original attacker and the smaller one, with their electrified scimitar.  Rey barely has time to evade the pike as it swipes toward her temple.  She ducks, kicking back, stabbing one blade into the ground and using the momentum to propel herself toward the second attacker.  The scimitar is there first, catching her leg, and a zing of electricity pulses from her toes to her hip that she refuses to notice as her boot catches its wielder in the stomach.

Rey rolls, catching herself with a knee buried in the ground as she swipes up.  Jayce throws himself backward to avoid her blade, but he’s a half-second too late.  It catches his mask, the durasteel visor screeching in protest as the purple of her blade tears it apart.

Swiping back with a parried thrust, the other Knight dives backward to avoid the blade as Rey jumps to her feet.  She brings her blades up simultaneously, screaming her frustration as she spins around and attacks again, the Knight barely having the time to block.

Dodging another attack from Jayce, then ducking beneath a swing from the scimitar, Rey lunges forward, trying to use Jayce’s trick; charge one Knight then diverge onto the other at the last moment.  She charges Jayce, and just as he brings his pike up to defend, she pivots, bringing her blades down simultaneously against the second Knight.  They jump back, but Rey presses on, twisting one blade so she is holding it underhand and swiping harshly.

The saber tears through the armor, and the Knight collapses, holding the new wound in their side and crawling backwards, desperate to get away.

Ben’s muted anguish rips across the bond then, his lightsaber ripping into the flesh and organs of one of the Knights.  Entombing himself in a mausoleum of shame as he tears apart one of the only people who stood by him, when so many others cast him out.

The Knight falls, and Ben’s anguish dissolves into resolve as he realizes there was no other outcome to this story.  As soon as the Knights turned on him, they were catapulted into a mess, the trajectory of their landing falling somewhere between disgrace and death.  Ben glances up at Rey, a knowing look to reassure her that he would have no regrets.

Rey turns her focus back to Jayce, whom she realizes is still wearing the mask, though it’s half-broken, the pieces of metal and transparisteel giving way to show a set of deep hazel eyes and dark hair beneath.  His gaze is twisted in fury as it darts from Rey to the injured Knight at her feet, and she readies herself for the inevitable attack just as Jayce rushes her.

His blows are much wider, more arcing in his anger, and Rey can’t attack, can only defend against the onslaught of assaults aiming to terminate.  His pike grazes her arm as she twists up, kicking out.  He catches her foot in the crook of his elbow and yanks, spinning her so she lands harshly on her stomach, both lightsaber hilts flying from her grasp.

The momentum of the pike would have killed her if she hadn’t sensed the attack, managing to roll partially onto her side, so the blade drives into her shoulder instead of her chest.  She cries out, both hands coming up to grasp the weapon.  She windmills her legs as she turns the rest of the way onto her back, landing a harsh kick into Jayce’s chest, propelled by the Force, that sends him flying backward.

_Rey!_

_I’m fine!_   She wrenches the weapon from her flesh, keeping a firm hold on it as she calls one saber hilt back to her hands.  She curses, her hands too full to call the second hilt, as Jayce Ren hops to his feet, rushing her with his bare hands.

“Scum!” he shouts as Rey ignites her blade.  Jayce uses the Force as he runs, grabbing the other Knight’s scimitar and bringing it down in a nearly-devastating blow over her head.  Rey crosses the pike and her lightsaber to block, but her wound screams in protest.  She twists her body out of the way just as her shoulder buckles, the scimitar embedding itself in the ground where her body was just a second before.

She’s bleeding, the pike not offering the sweetness of cauterization like a lightsaber wound.  Her blood trickles, thick and hot, down her arm, staining the tan wraps a disgusting burgundy.  She pulls the Force against her, straining to keep herself upright, to hold her blood in her body where it belongs.

Jayce barely gives her a moment, wrenching the scimitar from the ground and swinging it wide, trying to catch her in the side.  She jumps back as the blade whistles just over her head, spinning and rolling to her feet.

They face each other, each breathing heavily, the wound in Rey’s left shoulder aching in protest as her hand tightens around the pike.  She wants to let it go, call her second blade, but he’ll go after it, and he’s far more skilled with it than with the heavy blade of the scimitar.

“I’ll kill you,” he snarls, swinging the scimitar so the electricity crackled around it.  “Jedi scum.”  Rey doesn’t dignify him with an answer, knowing the further he fell into his anger, the more darkness he’d shroud himself in – devolving deeper into his rage, it was potentially exactly what Rey needed to win this battle.

If he succumbed far enough, if he gave into that anger, she would prevail in this fight.  Force be with her, she _knew_ she would, just like she knew she’d defeat Kylo Ren.

He points the scimitar at her throat, beckoning her to argue.  “You took _everything_ from us.”  Rey refuses to be baited, adrenaline coursing through her veins.  She feels Ben through the bond as he pushes against blow after blow from the Knight he has yet to kill, struggling to help her.

He’s confused, she realizes.  The man in front of her, feet planted firmly in the ground, the unfamiliar scimitar shaking in his hands as he holds it straight out, should have wanted Ben dead more than anything.  But he’d kidnapped Rey, attempted to interrogate her, tried to keep her Force signature from reaching Ben’s notice.  If Finn hadn’t interrupted, Rey is suddenly quite certain this man before her would have turned into a true monster, would have attempted to wrestle information and sanity from her as he cut her off from the Force and threatened Ben’s life.  He would have tortured her.

“That’s why you came after me, instead of Ben,” she realizes too late that she’s talking aloud, the loss of blood making it harder for her to think coherently.  But the thought is out there, and she shakes her head.  “You think I forced him to make these decisions, to choose me.  You think I tricked him.”

Jayce Ren screams, the sound a strange mix of real and distorted through the broken vocoder.  He rushes Rey, swinging the scimitar up.  She dodges easily, his stance becoming unsteady with his rage.

“Kylo Ren had _everything_ before you came along!” Jayce shouts.  “The Knights of Ren had the galaxy vicariously in their grasp!  The Darkness was prevailing!  And he throws it away for a _Jedi!_ ”  The word is a curse in his mouth, spit like a sacrilegious expletive at her feet, and this is the first time Rey is desperately wishing that she truly were a Jedi.  “The religion we all _swore_ we’d never be a part of!  The religion that _betrayed us_ , the religion we _destroyed_!”

He brings the scimitar down again, and she blocks it with his pike, twisting the metal together and trying to create a vantage point in which to bring her saber over him.  He catches her idea, dodges backward, but loses the scimitar as she loses the pike.  He reaches for it, yanking it back into his hand with the Force and stabbing toward her.  Rey jumps away, breathing heavily, her single lightsaber humming expectantly in her hands.

“And you brought it _back_ , _you brought it back!”_

He was fraying around the edges, his careful planning falling apart.

The lavender blade thrummed with anticipation.

_“You turned him back to the light!”_ he screeches.

_No_ , she thinks to herself.  _He didn’t turn.  He accepted himself.  The light and the dark._

The saber pulses with her thoughts, and she looks down at it.

This is Luke’s crystal, she realizes after a moment.  And it’s singing to her.

Taking a moment to inhale deeply, Rey twists the saber in her hand as Jayce lunges forward.  Rey blocks his blow, parries, blocks a second blow, then drops and arches her saber up, slicing through the last of his mask and cutting into the exposed flesh.

He screams, stumbling backwards, one gloved hand pressing into the burned, singed skin where she ripped open his face.  The steel of the mask falls away, and Rey sees the man beneath.

A mop of straight, sweat-soaked auburn hair, hazel eyes twisted in fury, a soft jawline set in tanned skin as his teeth clench together in rage.  Jayson, that’s what Ben had called him.  This was Jayson.

The tear through his cheek wasn’t as elegant as the one she’d given Ben, all those months ago on Starkiller.  The flesh was split, still dancing with remnant embers of her saber, and his eye was welted shut already.  She wasn’t actually sure if she’d left him one.  It stretched the entire left side of his face, from jaw to forehead, giving him the illusion of having two halved faces stitched together.

Reflexively, her fingers twitch toward the other half of her weapon, lost in the grass a dozen yards away.  Jayson catches the movement, bringing his pike up, and Rey blocks easily.  He’s in too much pain to fight effectively – it’ll be nothing for her to kill him.  After an angry war cry, she deflects his blows almost unceremoniously, causing him to bellow his woes.  He cannot win.  He’s too far lost, swinging blindly as he holds his pike with one hand, the other trying desperately to keep his face together.  Rey pulls back, darting to one side and bringing her blade across the backs of his thighs.  He cries out, falling to his knees, pike lost.

At her mercy.  She raises her blade, feeling the darkness whisper down her neck to kill him, end it all, end the pain and suffering this man has caused.  Bring justice for the lost souls who undoubtedly fell to his pike.  Bring justice for Ben, who watched the only people he could ever have called friends turn on him because of the lies this man spewed.

She feels Ben’s resolve once more, glances up to watch as his saber rips through the armor of his second Knight.  The Force tamps down around her.  His eyes meet hers instantly, and she doesn’t understand the horror on his face until her side erupts in electrified flames.

Falling, Rey twists, bringing her saber down and taking the arm of the other Knight, the one she’d wounded before, with one swipe.  The Knight screams, a high-pitched keening that turns the vocoder into a mess of static.  It pierces Rey’s ears, and her saber extinguishes itself as she lands on the hard ground.

Jayson is on his feet once more, his face twisted into a sickening sneer as he raises his pike over his head, intending to deliver the killing blow.

The crackling, angry blade of a familiar saber protrudes through Jayce from behind, the red stream of light dancing above Rey’s face as Ben shouts indistinctly.  Her attacker looks down in muted astonishment as his pike falls from his hand, until Ben shoves the limp body to the side.

The Force rushes back once more.  She didn’t even realize Jayson had used his power.

Rey looks up at him, her dark knight, his face twisted in agony as he drops to his knees beside her.  She can’t really feel her wounds, but she doesn’t have the strength to stop the blood flow, either, so she imagines they must be awful.  He’s got a small cut on his cheek, and the compression sleeve on his arm is torn from his wrist to his elbow with a long gash beneath.

“No, no, no,” he says, barely perceptible to her ears as his hands move powerlessly over her wounds.  His fingers ghost down her neck, and all she can see are his eyes, swimming with disbelief and more fear than she ever thought him capable.  She reaches a shaky hand up, cupping his cheek, and he leans into it, pressing his mouth against her palm.  “If we get you to the Resistance—"

“Master,” the one Knight, the last one says, and Ben is on his feet in an instant, blade drawn.  Neither she nor Ben had noticed the approach.  The Knight doesn’t waver, instead reaching up and allowing the breathing apparatus of her mask to hiss as she pulls it away.  She has pale green skin decorated with small, diamond-shape tattoos across her forehead and down her nose.  She looks at Rey, and Rey is shocked to see kindness in her blue eyes.  “I can heal her.”

“Why?” Ben hisses, standing protectively above her, and she doesn’t know if he can hear her asking him for help to stand.  It feels awkward, being so far away from the conversation.  “Your betrayal has not gone unheeded, Chrinda Ren.”

“I never drew my weapon,” the Mirialan woman responds, dropping to her knees beside Rey of her own accord.  Ben stays standing, his blade at the woman’s throat, as she breathes in slowly with her eyes closed.  She looks down at Rey, scanning her body, and then Rey feels the softest prickle in the Force.

It’s a pins-and-needles feeling, pricking up her side like she’d fallen asleep on it.  She can feel her flesh, the damage from the scimitar, the electricity that singed her nerves and seared her skin.  As the Force stitches her back together, the numbness from her shock ebbs, and all at once she can feel the pain.

She cries out as Ben drops to his knee beside her, lightsaber extinguished, a hand clutching his side as he feels the echo of her pain.  His hand reaches out blindly and grasps hers, squeezing.

“Payback,” she gasps, clearing her throat in an attempt to sound stronger than she feels.  “For the blaster bolt.”  Ben barks a laugh, and Rey doesn’t miss the way the woman looks at him, even for the briefest of moments.

As the woman works over her body, a sweat breaking out over her brow, the pain finally begins to fade.  She can almost feel the wound as it sutures shut on her side, the soft prodding of the woman’s fingers becoming less and less of a distress against the blaze of the gash.

In a few moments, the same pins-and-needles feeling stretches over the wound in her shoulder, and Rey gasps a breath.  This one doesn’t take as long, but when she finishes, the woman is panting.

“There,” she says, voice strained.  “She’ll still need bacta – I didn’t touch the wound on her leg – but she’ll live.”  Rey grasps Ben’s other hand in her own, and he helps her sit up, the devastating lacerations in her side and shoulder but a whisper now.

“Thank you, um…?”

“Ilecce,” the woman smiles.  Ben looks at her, eyes wide with surprise, and she shrugs.  “I figure if you’re taking back your old identity, I may as well take back mine.”  She sits back, exhausted from the exertion of healing.

Rey moves to stand, and Ben helps her, though she can’t put a lot of pressure on her leg.  Remnants of the electricity from the scimitar are still coursing through her system, and her hands are shaking embarrassingly.

Ben reaches down, grasping the hand of Ilecce and helping her to stand, as well.  They take a moment to look, together, at the fallen Knights of Ren as Rey leans heavily into his side.  Ben wraps an arm around Rey, supporting half her weight.  Exhaustion doesn’t even begin to cover how she feels.

“M-Master,” a weak voice says, and Ben turns sharply to the Knight that had attacked Rey, the one that had lost their arm for it.  Ben looks down at them, his face a stone slate devoid of expression.  Then, he turns Rey toward the makeshift Resistance base and walks away.

“Shall I…?” Ilecce says, staying where she was.  Ben doesn’t spare a glance back.

"Do what you must.”  He reaches out, the Force pulling the other half of Rey’s saberstaff into his hand, but he doesn’t let go of her to hand it back.

Rey hears the electric scimitar hum as it is pulled from the ground, then a snap as it glides through the air.  Then she hears nothing at all.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------

He expected it to be harder to fell his Knights.  He expected his mind to implode, for his soul to scream in agony as he exercised their lives from this realm.  Much the way it had when Han Solo succumbed to his blade.  In a way, he _wanted_ that guilt to wreak its havoc down to his core; pain would be the path to his power.  That’s what Snoke had taught him.  What had been instilled into his spirit for longer than he could ever hope to remember.

Such was not the case.

When Yavin Ren was bested, a bad block that allowed Ben to slip his blade up and decapitate, he readied himself for the anguish.  And it washed over him, as he expected it to.  A huge, astounding wave of self-reproach colliding with the form of himself within his mind.  For a moment, he was pulled out to the vast sea of his own misery.

What he’d not expected was how quickly that wave receded.  How he’d not been dragged under the tidal wave of his own emotion, as he was so accustomed to doing.

Because he sees Rey across the battle field, her face twisted into a grimace of anger as she circles his best Knight.  She catches his eye, hers a burning, furious hazel, and his resolve hardens around his shame.

These men and women were no longer his Knights of Ren.  They were no longer his anything.  Everything he was now belonged to the half-Jedi across the field as she threw herself into battle, screaming her rage to the heavens, looking like a fucking lightsaber-wielding goddess in black and tan robes.

Suddenly, he finds his calling, as though he’d ever really needed to search for it to begin with.  She’d become the center of his universe – he knew that, had always known that, from the moment he saw her mind on Starkiller, they were bound.  No matter how messy they began, he could only see a beautiful ending wrapped up in this perfect woman who defended his honor without a second thought.

Planning to dismantle the First Order from the inside was already done.  An idea that came to fruition and was complete in the same moment.  There was never another option – as soon as he’d taken the title of Supreme Leader, he knew the crux of the matter.

All that power, the realization of everything Darth Vader aspired for, the entirety of an empire thrust upon him, his galaxy.

It was all worthless.

No pride ever came with holding that title.  His legacy, those years spent enduring Snoke’s manipulation and abuse, the righteous idea that the galaxy belonged to him by association, that he was meant to reach out and take that which Darth Vader could not.

It meant nothing to him.  Never had, not truly.  But the training, the Force – those lessons were beneficial.  Years of tactical study and research; he’d found a magnitude of useful information stowed away in old archives and history, an inordinate amount to learn.  To say that Snoke’s tutelage had gone wasted would be erroneous.  Truly, those years spent under that monster were agonizing, but valuable.  He’d learned more about the various aspects of the Force than he could have ever hoped to learn from Luke Skywalker’s mindful heeding of the Light Side gimmick.

And then there was Rey.

She leaned heavily against him, her mouth twisted in a grimace of pain with every step, and he meant to reach down, hook his elbow behind her knees and carry her the rest of the way to the tents – there was still a battle raging above their heads, TIE Fighters and X-Wings shooting across the sky in a dazzling array of tan and red and black.  The sooner they could get out of the open, the better.  But Rey glared up at him as soon as he had the thought and said, “Don’t you dare, Ben,” so he had not.

She had no idea how the Force flowed around her.  A bright, blinding light interlaced with darkness that she was able to exploit, that she unconsciously reached for during battles.  She was more powerful than he ever could have imagined.  More powerful than she realized.  Even now, limping through the carnage of battle, leaning against him like a crutch, she conveyed immense command of the Force.

Ben holds half of Rey’s staff as he rushes her through the field.  It takes a few minutes for Ilecce to catch up, walking his flank, wielding her cleaver with Kerran’s scimitar strapped to her side.  He imagined she’d come back later, collect the rest of the weapons from the Knights.  They were truly invaluable, the only of their kind.

She’s discarded her mask completely, and her eyes are swimming with a hundred emotions she’d never convey, not to him.  She was the last, the only Knight of Ren, though Ben was fairly certain she’d shed that title soon enough, if she hadn’t already.  She let go of her name, at least, after deciding for herself that he had.

Did that make him Ben Solo once more?  He wasn’t sure if it was a name he could live up to.

Rey’s friends rush out of the barracks then, the ex-Stormtrooper and the mechanic girl, as Ben approaches with Rey in tow and Ilecce at his side.

“Whoa, what happened?” FN-2187 yelled as he rushes up, moving to hook Rey’s other arm around him.  Ben casts him a glare, and he immediately steps back.

“She was hurt by the Knights of Ren,” Ilecce answers for him.  “I healed the more serious injuries, but she still needs a few patches.

“I just need to rest for a minute and I’ll be fine,” Rey argues, and Ben shakes his head in exasperation.

“She needs bacta,” he says simply as FN-2187 and Rose usher them toward the tents.  With every step, Leia Organa’s Force signature gets brighter and louder, until they’re merely a few yards away.  “Rey,” Ben says, hesitating to move further.

She looks up at him and understanding flushes her features.  Nodding, she steps away, and Ben is reluctant to let her go.  He does, and FN-2187 is there immediately, wrapping an arm around her waist and herding her into the medical tent.  Rose hangs back, an expression on her face that Ben recognizes instantly.

People are running back and forth, shouting at each other, readying hand-held weapons and darting toward what few X-Wings are left on the ground, shoddy repairs done haphazardly.  A few notice Ben, standing idle just outside of the camp, and they all go running in fear.  It won’t be long before his mother is aware of his presence within their sanctuary, if she isn’t already.  Strangely, none of them move to fire on him, though he’s sure they’re all well-aware that they’d die before they had a true shot at ending his life.  Not even his Knights were able to do that.

“You don’t want to come in?” the mechanic asks after a moment, and Ben shakes his head.  Rose nods, as though she understands.  “You’d probably not be terribly welcome, after everything, but we did tell them the truth.  That the Ascendancy fell because of you.  We’re not exactly sure how many transports made it off those ships, but the favor is turning toward us now, thanks to you.”  Ben simply nods, his eyes on the tent Rey disappeared through with the traitorous Stormtrooper, though he could no longer feel anger toward the traitor part.  After all, it’d been him that killed Snoke, the ultimate act of betrayal.

"She’ll be okay,” Ilecce says, putting a hand on Ben’s forearm for a moment before pulling away.  Not accustomed to touching him, or for him to allow being touched at all.  “You could probably use bacta, too, you know.”

“Probably,” Ben acquiesces, but he refuses to move.  Ilecce looks toward the tents, then quietly asks Rose if they can get Ben some amount of medical help.  Rose nods eagerly, rushing forward and holding the tent flap open for Ilecce.  Leaving him.

He’s not alone, not truly.  The bond with Rey is open, and he’s listening as she argues that she’s fine, despite the medical help urging her to lie back so they can press the bacta into her wounds.  He can feel, rather than see, that FN-2187 is standing right beside her, and it makes him bristle.

Jealousy.

He hated that Stormtrooper.

_“Ben,”_ Rey whispers into his mind, but her tone is chastising.  He shrugs her away.

Rose and Ilecce return holding a jar of bacta and a roll of gauze.  They’re both smiling sheepishly, seeming to have forged a rickety friendship in their short time together.  Ilecce is hesitant to reach out, to apply the bacta, and Rose sighs.  She takes the jar, grabs Ben’s chin with a surprising amount of strength, and forces him to bend to her – incredibly short – level so she can smear the goo across the cut on his cheek.

“I know you’ve done, like, a ton of horrible things,” Rose says as she massages the bacta into the gash.  “But it’s really hard to be afraid of you after watching how you interact with Rey.”  Ben says nothing, just watches as she works on his wounds with a generous amount of ferocity.  “I don’t like watching the way Finn talks to Rey, either,” she whispers after a moment, pressing a bandage into his face to hold the bacta.

Ilecce watches the exchange with barely-contained amusement.  “This is so strange,” she says after a moment.  “The Jedi has made you soft, Ben.”

“She doesn’t consider herself a Jedi,” Ben says once Rose releases his face.  She then grabs his arm, tearing the compression sleeve the rest of the way off with that surprising force again – these were not made of thin fabric.  She works harder on this wound, the cut much deeper than the one on his face had been.  Her eyebrows pinch together in concentration.

“Whatever she decides she is, you’ve grown soft,” Ilecce maintains.  Ben glances at her, and she’s got a smile playing on her lips.  “It suits you.  Makes me think of Ben Solo.”

“Finished,” Rose interrupts before Ben can think of a coherent response.  She’s wrapped his arm from wrist to elbow in gauze, and he can feel the bacta beneath the bandages as it works to stitch him back together.  “It might still scar, but…  I get the feeling that doesn’t faze you.”  She smiles, and Ben reflexively brings his hand up to touch the scar Rey gave him.  Her personal claim.  Her brand, etched permanently into his skin.

He’d never minded it.

Ilecce freezes in his peripheral, crouching and poised defensively, and Ben reaches for his saber in the next moment, his eyes following her line of sight to the potential intrusion.

General Organa is marching toward their small trio with a look of determination on her face.  Ben’s heart stops for a moment too long before picking up double-time in his chest, hammering so hard against his ribcage he’s certain they’re going to bruise.  She’s much smaller than she had been the last time he’d seen her, nearly a decade ago.  Her hair was more gray than it had been, the few strips she’d once had coming to take up half of her head.  She wore it piled atop in a braid he recognized as a dignitary style from Alderaan.  Her steps were slow and careful, leaning heavily on a cane, but she still exuded an aura of confidence and dignity.

Without any fear, she marched right up to Ben, her small stature just barely eye-level with his chest.  She never seemed so tiny when he was a child, always this formidable, imposing feature, able to command a room with a simple look or gesture.  Suddenly he dwarfed her.  Ben rolled his shoulders, staring down at her, refusing to be intimidated by such a small creature.  She stared right back, her eyes aflame with resolution.  The air between them seemed to crackle with electricity, growing more and more tense with every passing second.  Neither of them would speak first.

“Perhaps we should—” Ilecce began.

“Yeah,” Rose finished, grabbing the Knight’s hand and rushing them away.

Still, General Organa stared.  Her eyes trailed over his own, down the inky black hair that nearly brushed his shoulders, across the planes of his cheeks, following the scar that raced from his eyebrow to his jaw.

“Your hair is longer,” the General finally said, breaking the uncomfortable silence.  Ben had no response, so he just met her gaze evenly.  She reached up, her thumb lightly tracing the scar that bisected his face, and Ben flinched away.  Still, she sought out his skin, tracing the scar across his cheek, where her hand rested, cupping it in the same way that Han Solo’s had.

The memory is too much, and he steps back, trying to look away before she’s able to see the shame in his eyes.

“She really did a number on you—”

“I didn’t take the shot,” he said, the words tumbling past his teeth before he gave them permission.  She just stared at him, her eyes still alight with the exertion of her own will, and Ben opted to continue.  “At the Raddus.  I didn’t take the shot.  I couldn’t.”  At this, her eyes soften, and she strokes her thumb knowingly across his cheekbone.  She doesn’t seem surprised by this revelation.

“Oh, Ben.”

And then, she smacks him.  _Hard_.

He could have stopped her.  The intent was clear before the decision was made.  But Ben didn’t.  General Organa had every right to hit him as hard and as much as she wanted.  The sting across his cheek was a minimal price to pay for the toll his very existence had taken on her.

The anger he felt toward her hadn’t dissipated.  But she wasn’t angry; however, the disappointment she felt toward him was completely justified.  It was also consuming – he thought he might prefer anger.

They continue staring at each other, her breathing somewhat labored as she tried to suppress her emotions, as she’d been doing his entire life.

Finally, she sighs, rubbing a hand on her forehead as though trying to dispel a headache.  “Tell me why,” she croaks.  “I need…  I need to hear it from you.  Tell me why.”  Ben knew what she was talking about.  He takes a long moment, eyes trained on her gray hair.  Did he do that?  Was her hardened age his fault?  How much older did she look now than she had before Han Solo died?  It was an answer he’d never receive.

“I didn’t hate him,” he begins, trying to remember what he’d said to Rey.  He thought for a moment, then took a slow breath.  The General refused to look at him.  His confession was on the tip of his tongue, and he swallowed it back, letting it drip down his throat like viscous bile.

“I didn’t hate him,” he says again, “but I will not give you an excuse for my actions.  Anything I say will be completely unjustified in your eyes, and you would be right to deny me justification with a war going on above us.”  She seems to remember where they are, looking up at the sky as ships and transports rush back and forth.  Whatever had escaped the Ascendancy fleet was likely to be arriving planetside any moment.

“So, you could kill him, but you couldn’t kill me?” she asks, and there’s a dry sort of humor in her tone that tears at him in a way he doesn’t anticipate, gutting him from the inside out.  Ben shakes his head.

“Killing Han Solo is my greatest regret,” he admits after a stretch of silence.  “It… broke me, in a way I never expected it to.”  The candor spills from his lips unimpeded, unintentionally, but the words flowed and wouldn’t slow.  A river he couldn’t dam.  “Even Snoke saw that, told me it split my spirit to the bone.  He was right.  If I had killed you, as well…”  He takes a shaky breath, feeling a prickling in the corner of his eyes.  They well, and Ben purses his lips, trying to lock away these emotions.  He was feeling too much all at once.

Finally, the General meets his gaze once more, wearing her broken heart across her features.  It was new and terrible – Leia Organa had never displayed such emotion, especially to the enemy.  She’d refused to break down when Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin destroyed Alderaan, when she’d been subject to Jabba the Hutt’s imposed slavery, when the man she’d loved had been frozen in carbonite.

Leia was not a weak woman.

Seeing her showing so much emotion across her aged face was tearing Ben apart.  He’d added decades to her years by killing her husband and causing the subsequent death of her brother.

Her hand came up once more and wiped away the stray tear that managed to leak from Ben’s eye.  It rested there for a moment before pulling back, her features hardening with resolve.

“I don’t forgive you,” she says firmly.

“I don’t expect you to,” he responds slowly.  “I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”  Leia nods.

“However,” she continues after a moment.  “Rey has found something in you that she believes is good and worthy, and I trust her judgment.”  She looks toward the medical tent just as Rey is emerging with Finn, Rose and Ilecce.  “You don’t deserve her.”

“I’m well-aware,” Ben responds, suppressing a smile.  Leia catches it, and her eyes glint.

“I’m truly hoping you do, one day,” Leia says quietly.  Ben looks down at her.

“I am trying,” he admits, and Leia nods, holding up the small chip he’d had BB-9E give to her earlier.  He takes it, assuming she’s downloaded the files.

“You’re still my son, Ben,” she says softly, her eyes warm with that love he doesn’t deserve.  “You’ll always be my son.”

“General,” Rose says, jogging up and officially (thankfully) ending the awkward confrontation between Ben and his mother.  “Forty-six First Order transports just touched ground nearby.  What should we do?  An aerial assault?”

“Are the bombers prepped?” Leia asks, immediately switching from scolding mother to militia operator from one heartbeat to the next.

“Yes, we can get them in the air, but there’s no telling how many will survive with the TIE Fighters still up there.”

“Some of those transports might be surrenders or defects,” Ben interjects as Rey comes to stand by his side.  He studies her quickly, noting that the wound in her leg seems most of the way healed and she’s having no trouble walking.  Her pants are a bloody mess, but she’s replaced her shirt with a starchy, over-sized, hospital-issue top.  “Since returning aboard the Ascendancy, I’ve been slowly planting seedling ideas in the more headstrong troopers’ minds.”

“What kind of ideas?” Finn asks, his gaze scrutinizing and distrustful.  He glances between Ben and Rey, almost like he still expects Ben to run her through.  But Ben only has eyes for Rey, his relief at her health palpable between them.  He hands her back the other half of her saber, and she beams at him.  Reading his eyes, her brow knits together, trying to figure out his line of thought.  It only takes a moment.  Realization dawns on Rey’s face as she thinks about what she saw when they were on board the First Order destroyer.

“You’ve been putting the idea in their head to revolt,” Rey assumes, and Ben nods his assent.  “That’s why the ship was utter chaos when we were aboard, and why there are TIE Fighters attacking one another.”

“It didn’t take much,” Ben admits.  “Some of the more adept troopers were disparaging the Order prior to my suggestions.  I just… implemented a bit more of a plan for them.”  He looks at FN-2187.  “I may have told them about you, though none of them know who started the rumor about the original renegade Stormtrooper.”

FN-2187 nods.  “As long as my name is being used as something honorable, and not as a method of further brainwashing.”  And then he seems to catch his words.  “Wait, would that be considered brainwashing?  Just with the Force?”

“We don’t exactly have time for this conversation,” Rey stresses.

“Our best course of action is to take out the higher-ranks that made it off the ship,” General Organa says.  “Any of the former Imperial Officers, especially, but high-ranking First Order militia need to be disposed of or captured.”  She begins walking back toward the camp, and everyone falls into step behind her, including Ben, though he’s encouraged along by Rey.

_What did you talk about?_ she asks, directly into his mind.  Ben glances down at her.

_I’ll tell you later_ , he responds, and Rey nods her assent.

_I’m holding you to that._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my lovelies!
> 
> Did you miss me? Because I missed you!
> 
> I almost couldn't update today either - I had to use my phone as a mobile hotspot. I couldn't keep you guys waiting like that. I didn't want you to think I died or anything.
> 
> Have I mentioned that Ileece is one of my absolute favorite characters and I love her? Because she is and I do. Maybe the only other person in the galaxy besides Rey not afraid of Ben. Except maybe Rose. I also love Rose.
> 
> My little space nerds are growing up and killing people.
> 
> Truth be told, writing the conversation between Leia and Ben might have been the most difficult dialogue written in this entire story. I know Leia isn't angry at Ben for killing Han - but oh my gods her disappointment has to be devastating.
> 
> Have you ever disappointed your parents? It's so much worse than making them mad.
> 
> I don't think I portrayed everything I wanted to with that conversation, either, but half of me thinks maybe I did that on purpose.
> 
> Also I didn't sleep over the weekend and I wrote a smutty modern-AU oneshot that's literally just sex between Rey and Ben, because I was doing laundry and wanted to practice my smut. So. It's called "Best Friends" - quotation marks included - and it's horrible. You should read it and let me know how awful it is.
> 
> ANYWAY!
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed it! I'm sorry I'm not very good at fight scenes. Also Jayce Ren is whinier than EPII Anakin Skywalker, and also worse.
> 
> Leave me comments! Ask me questions! Leave me kudos!!!!!
> 
> Someone asked what BB-8 and BB-9E were talking about, and if Ben knew that that was the droid that ratted out Rose and Finn. BB-8 was just talking about how he was the head honcho around here, except Poe, and how all the humans did whatever he told them to do. Nine-ee did not believe him. And no, Ben was not aware that Nine-ee was the droid who helped capture our Resistance members, but he wouldn't have cared anyway.
> 
> Someone else asked about Poe's potential Force abilities - that's just a working theory on my part. But he grew up with the other half of Luke Skywalker's Uneti tree, and he's as good of a pilot as Anakin, so subconsciously being able to use the Force would not surprise me.
> 
> You kids give me life. Seriously.
> 
> I'll see you on Tuesday!!


	34. in which our space nerds get a shot at ending the war

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, All The Kings Horses by Karmina pairs well with this chapter

Rey’s being healed by Ilecce expedited the bacta process by days.  All the med droid had to do was apply some patches to the wounds on her arm and leg, have her rest for a few minutes, and she was good to go.  Finn rifled through a crate of supplies and handed her an old tunic to wear in place of the one the Knight managed to shred with her scimitar, for which she was grateful.  At least this shirt wasn’t soaked in her own blood, though the rest of her clothes still were.

Leia and Ben were talking when she finally emerged from the medical tent, and though Ben’s emotions were a devastating mix of guilt, shame, and fear, Rey knew Leia was in no real danger.  She hadn’t felt Leia smack him across the face, but she’d been able to tell when it happened through Ben’s side of the bond.  He kept it halfway-closed to her, keeping his conversation with his mother private.  As though that would prevent her from asking.

Ilecce fell in step beside Rey, her black robes swishing with every step she took, a light smile on her face.  Ben had told her once that his Knights were loyal to him above all else.  His betrayal of that loyalty centered around her, but this Knight specifically seemed to have no quarrels with Ben’s decision, despite the other four clearly despising his choice to save and remain next to Rey.  She wanted to ask the healer, but now didn’t seem like an appropriate time.

“General,” Ben said, snapping Rey out of her reverie.  She glanced up at him, but his eyes were locked forward, not acknowledging his surroundings.  “Rey and I are going to head toward the transports, begin the evacuation process for those willing to defect.”  It was only then that Rey realized the eyes locked onto Ben’s form as Leia led them further and further into the camp.  Resistance members with unveiled fury in their eyes, with the Supreme Leader in their midst.

Leia nodded.  “Finn, Rose, go with them for backup,” she said, her voice almost mechanic in the way she responded.  The five of them split off from the General, Ben walking more purposefully away from the camp and toward the pulse in the Force where Rey was certain the transports touched ground.  Never too far from the battle.  Various Resistance members were mounting speeders and rushing in that direction as well, and Rey glanced back just long enough to watch Leia’s back disappear through a command tent.

_Are you okay?_ she asked him across the bond.  He glanced down at her.

_I’ll survive_.

_That’s not what I asked._   Ben sighed, but said nothing more, walking faster away from prying eyes.  Ilecce was still flanking Rey, her cleaver drawn as they approached the transports, with Rose and Finn on Ben’s opposite side.  They came up over a hill, moving toward a valley where First Order transports were still touching ground.

It seemed like only the Ascendancy had been evacuated, the rest of the fleet either abandoned to the stars or no survivors made it out.  Rey looked up, watching as the barrage against the fleet caused fireworks amongst the darkening sky, the ships erupting with inaudible explosions, lost in the vacuum of space.  More transports were on their way down – it seemed the forty-six Rose had mentioned was merely the first wave.

Rose hailed one of the Resistance members that passed on a speeder, explaining that some of the transports might contain defected Stormtroopers, asking him to pass along the message.  He nodded, taking out a comm and rushing away, but Rey noted the look of distaste he cast Ben before he sped off.

Ben seemed mostly unaffected by the glares, but Rey felt her anger piling with every look of disgust thrown his way.  He was the reason any of this was happening, that the Resistance was near an overwhelming victory.  Rey knew better than to say that Ben had switched sides – though he was dismantling the First Order, he wasn’t a Resistance member by any means, and never would be.  Rey understood that now.  His place was not with the Resistance.

His place was simply by her side.

He’d purposefully misled her when he said that tearing down the First Order was a mistake.  She saw that now, read it in his mind.  He wanted the Order gone.  He just didn’t want to put her in danger in order to make that happen.  She should be upset, but really, she was just in awe of how well thought through this plan truly was.

Though she could have done without him getting shot.

She supposed he probably started planning this on Ahch-To, though she wouldn’t be sure until she had time to ask him later.

Grabbing his hand, she pulled him to a stop, making him look down at her.  She searched his eyes, looking for his fear regarding their situation, but he was eerily calm in the wake of all the destruction surrounding them.  Still, as he took her in, she felt a surge of his panic at the prospect of losing her – they’d already come so close, just an hour ago.  Though she knew she’d be fine, he was terrified.

“Whatever happens, we’re in this together,” she stressed, willing him to believe it.  He took a moment to rove his eyes over her, then he nodded.

“Together,” he repeated, the barest hint of a smile on his lips.  Rey wanted desperately to kiss him, but she squeezed his hand instead before turning back to the transports.

Stormtroopers were pouring out of the ships, some swarming others, those wearing helmets fighting those without armor in an all-out brawl.  Officers were rushing away, trying to avoid the fight before getting thrust in without consent.  Armed guards were attacking high-ranking military officials, who didn’t have time to grab the blasters on their hips to defend themselves.

Utter chaos.

Rey wasn’t sure if she should be pleased or appalled.

“I can’t believe you did all this,” she marveled, unable to take her eyes off the scene before them.  Finn and Rose seemed equally as dumbfounded, though Rose is more horror-struck, and Finn is exuding excitement.  This must have been his dream, Rey muses.

“I didn’t do this,” Ben responded slyly.  “This was all them.  I just instilled their ability to actually accomplish what they were conditioned to believe they couldn’t.”

“You gave them their own purpose,” Finn said slowly.

“No,” Rose said, squaring her shoulders.  “He gave them reason to fight for themselves.”

Ilecce was standing silently beside Rey, taking in the scene before them with her cleaver drawn, eyes searching for something in particular as they darted back and forth across the battle field.

“Hux is mine,” Ben said softly from beside her, and Rey caught him looking at Ilecce with an authority she hardly recognized on his features.  The authority of the Master of the Knights of Ren.  Ilecce still said nothing, merely nodded.  Ben let go of Rey’s hand, drawing his lightsaber.  Rey followed suit, as well as Finn and Rose with their blasters.  The battle was spilling closer as more people rushed from the transports.

Finally, they noticed their small entourage, led by the Supreme Leader standing off in the distance.  Half of them shouted angrily, cajoling him, calling him a coward, while the other half – the unmasked half – attacked anyone who spoke out against him.

Rey ignites her saberstaff and takes a protective step in front of Ben as blasters aimed on him, but he stood calmly, lightsaber held loosely by his side.

“Ben,” she says softly.  He’s not even ignited his blade.  Speeders are rushing back and forth, blaster fire going off, First Order Stormtroopers backed by Resistance members as they attack their commanding officers.  And Ben is just absorbing it all, watching the mayhem like someone might watch a holo-vid they’ve seen a hundred times.  Passively.  Barely even curious.

Finally, he ignites his saber and puts a hand on Rey’s shoulder.  “Stay with me,” he says softly, and she nods.  She nods at Finn and Rose, as well, who have looks of nervousness and determination on their faces, respectively.  Once Finn makes eye contact with Rey, his mouth hardens with his resolve.

“Ilecce,” Ben says, and the Knight looks up at him.  “Stay behind.  We might need you later.”

“No offense, Ben,” she responds, swinging her cleaver, “but I don’t take orders from you.  You’re not my master anymore.”  And Rey couldn’t help but smile at the girl, whose eyes were dancing with amusement as well.

“Oh, burn,” Finn says, and Ben shoots him a look.  He holds his hands up in mock surrender, and despite the battle going on around and before them, Rey has it in her to laugh.

A TIE Silencer rips through atmo then, nose-diving toward the transports and shooting at other Fighters, and Finn let’s out a whoop of excitement.  The ship spins, careening through the air in a beautiful haze of sleek black metal and green blaster bolts, before Poe pulls back and shoots once more into the sky.

Ben doesn’t pay any attention.  He marches toward the onslaught of pandemonium with a sole purpose, and Rey has to jog to catch up once the excitement at seeing Poe has worn off.  She doesn’t turn to make sure but assumes the other three follow, once they realize the two Force-users are no longer in their midst.

The blaster fire on them is immediate, and Ben deflects with his lightsaber like it’s nothing.  Rey follows, using the Force to deflect bolts as she pulls her saberstaff in two.  Her blades glide seamlessly through the air, deflecting the red pellets aimed to kill until she gets close enough to attack.

Stormtroopers swarm, attacking each other, the unmasked vigilante soldiers shouting vulgarities and defending Ben and the rest of the Resistance.  More white-plated bodies still rush, and Rey’s blades swing through the air, cutting easily through the flimsy armor, deflecting the cascade of blaster fire back at the guns they came from.  Ben raises his hand, pulling several troopers into the air whom all had their weapons on Rey, before tossing them carelessly to the side.  They fly into another group, all clad in white, and the entire mob goes down.

As they converge on the center of the mayhem, Rey and Ben instinctively turn their backs to one another, keeping close, each analyzing the situation and giving one another a set of eyes on the back of their heads.  This was a familiar dance.  One they’d each come to know, a tuneless piece where they relied solely on each other’s bodies and minds.  Rey ducked, and Ben was there to bring his lightsaber across a soldier.  Ben parried, and Rey swept out his opponent’s feet.  They moved like a single organism, nearly flawlessly, cutting apart the opponent with finesse.  Rey knew the unmasked soldiers would be granted a place within the Resistance, just as Finn had been, but the rest of these soldiers seemed too hard-wired to hope for change.  They wanted to kill Ben for his betrayal, and she just refused to allow that to happen.  She would not lose him this way.  So when he needed guard, Rey made sure her blade was there to block.

Ilecce was lost in the frenzy, but Rey saw the electrified scimitar she’d taken from Kerran Ren swinging gracefully through the air every now and then.  She was much further in the crowd, having bypassed most of the frontal evacuation from the transports, most likely looking for the higher-ranking officers and Hux to bring into Ben’s custody.

Finn’s specialized training was helping him immensely with fighting the troopers, but Rose was less qualified, though incredibly determined.  Finn tried to cover her and himself.  Rey caught, from the corner of her eye, just as a group of Stormtroopers descended on her, a First Order control baton whizzing through the air, straight toward the back of Finn’s head.

“Finn!”

She grappled with the gang, tearing them apart in moments, and when she turned back around, her heart nearly gave out.

Ben was there, right next to her best friend, his lightsaber ripping through the three troopers that had tried to converge on both Finn and Rose.  He used the Force to throw two more back, and Finn’s eyes widened with realization.

Ben had just saved Finn’s life.

They stare at one another, Finn’s mouth still agape with disbelief, before it all sets in.

A moment of understanding passed between them.

The two men nodded once at each other before Ben turned his attention back to Rey, who was looking at him like he hung the stars themselves.  Many of the soldiers left were either the armor-less renegades that had defected or were still wearing their armor and holding up their hands in surrender with hopes of impunity.  Uncertain of whether it would be granted, Rey was relieved for their surrender regardless.  The bloodshed could finally end.  The war could finally end.

A strangled cry ripples out, ringing both in the air and through the Force, and Ben takes off running before Rey can even comprehend what happened, without a moment’s hesitation.  She follows immediately, dodging through throng of bodies, doubling her speed to keep up with his long legs.

He’s a blur of red and black as he charges the scene.  Ilecce is grappling with the ginger officer Rey has never actually seen with her own eyes, a wound in her side from a blaster.  It broke the armor plating, blood dripping onto the ground as three Stormtroopers attempt to overpower her.

Ben wastes no time, swinging his saber wide to capture one of the troopers in the leg, shearing it clean off.  Rey twists her blades back together and is on the second in a moment, turning her back to Ben as more soldiers flood the small clearing between the transports.  Rey reaches out to grab Ben’s tunic as he pulls Ilecce to her feet, surrounded all at once by over a hundred soldiers with blasters raised.  Even she’s not optimistic enough to think they’ll be able to overcome them all, not with Ilecce injured.  Breathing heavily, Ben backs into Rey, keeping her against him as an arm holds up Ilecce, echoing her sentiments that they wouldn’t be able to fight their way out of this.

_We’re not giving up_ , he stresses to her across the bond.  _We’ll get out of this._

“Ren,” Hux sneers, parting the stormtroopers like the sea as he moves through them to get closer, stopping just out of reach of Ben’s blade.  “Your insubordination ends now.  You will both turn yourselves over to the First Order, and we will spare the rest of your pathetic Resistance this day.”  Rey noted with mild surprise that capturing her and Ben seemed even more important to him than destroying the Resistance, but took into account how he’d not promised them a tomorrow.

Ben doesn’t hesitate.  “I’ll turn myself in if the girl goes free.”  And Rey and Hux both balk at such a firm statement.  There’s only resolve in his tone, in his mind.

“Ben, no—”

"The scavenger has played just as much a part in this as you have, Ren,” Hux recovers.  “The execution of the former Supreme Leader and the last Jedi will be broadcasted via holonet so the galaxy is privy to your misdeeds against the First Order.”

“The First Order is dead,” Ben says simply.  “You are outnumbered, you have no ship base, no planetside base, no fleet.”  He shrugs.  “I saw to the destruction myself.”

Hux is unperturbed.  “A minor setback.  The First Order has plenty of disposable income.”

“The income I funneled into personal accounts in fourteen different systems?” Ben asks, and Rey looks up at him with wide eyes.  Hux bristles at this.  “Only to be accessed by those named on the accounts, of course.  Unfortunately, I simply can’t recall whose name is on each.”

“The First Order has control of the entire galaxy.  You believe your accounts to be so inaccessible to the largest military organization ever seen?”  His confidence was horrifying.  Rey gripped Ben’s tunic harder, white-knuckling the fabric, her fear palpable.  Ben reached back, giving her hand a quick squeeze of reassurance.

“The datafile in which I’ve stored that information is gone, Hux,” Ben says slowly.  “Hidden where you’ll never find it.  Out of the First Order’s clutches.  What will you do, dismantle every bank in the galaxy looking for recently-opened accounts under the various pseudonyms I’ve illustrated?”

“If that’s what it takes,” Hux hisses.  “If it means defiling everything you stood for, after destroying this Order, destroying the government Supreme Leader Snoke worked years to build!”  His face was reddening with anger, becoming more similar in color to his hair than to normal skin.  A vein was popping on his forehead, and Rey was suddenly quite afraid of how this man’s anger truly looked.  Ben could get lost in his sea of emotions, but Starkiller was the esteemed accomplishment of Snoke and this Hux.

His anger, his beliefs have destroyed entire systems.  What would he do next, in the throes of power?  How many more lives lost, how many more planets ravaged by war?  How many others blind-sided by their own death?

That’s why Ben wants so desperately to kill him, she realizes.  He knows the galaxy will fall to ruin if run by Hux and his minions.

“The First Order was only a government after I took over,” Ben says, uncharacteristically trying to hold the conversation, and Rey glances around.  A movement catches the corner of her eye, and she sees a few unmasked troopers, bobbing in and out of the crowd, sneaking up on the soldiers holding Ben, Rey and Ilecce captive.  Hux was too preoccupied to notice how thoroughly surrounded his group suddenly found themselves.  “Prior to my coming of power, it was merely a military.”

“Total galactic control was always the goal of the First Order!” Hux retaliates, seemingly unable to stand being talked down to by the likes of Ben.  But it was working – he didn’t realize Ben was stalling.

Rey could feel her confidence surging, her faith in Ben practically shooting into the sky.  She was elated to know of his willingness to work with the Stormtrooper defects and the Resistance so thoroughly.  He was calculated and controlled, holding an air of authority and precedence even as he clutched his wounded comrade to his side, a hand wrapped around her midsection to stop the bleeding, subtly using the Force to stitch her back together the way she’d done Rey; the way he’d done himself.

It was all coming together, as Hux was convinced their formulated plan was falling apart.

“Not another word, scumbag!” Finn shouts, holding a blaster pointed directly at the back of Hux’s head.  Blasters still trained on the Force users suddenly whirred, looking around and finally realizing that they were on the losing end of this battle.  Hux seems to notice, as well.  The unmasked Stormtroopers all have their weapons pointed into the crowd, and they’re shackling the remaining Order sympathizers quietly, taking them into the custody of the Resistance.

Slowly, Hux raises his hands, as though he’s going to surrender willingly.  It’s then that Rey sees the comm-link stuck in his sleeve.  As his wrist passes his face, he turns, pressing the button.

“Fire at will.”

The transport some meters to the right suddenly whirs, gears grinding together as the hatch opens.  A plasma torpedo shoots out a half-second later, and Rey watches, helpless, her stomach dropping into her feet so fast she nearly collapses.  It’s too late to stop it, they were caught too off guard.

The torpedo blazes through the sky, striking its target true in a blast of heat and fire.  It took a mere second for that technology to find the death it sought.

The Force screams its protest, an ear-shattering cry of torment and anguish, as though the fabric of reality itself might rip open from the wound caused by an overwhelming loss, then is suddenly hushed with resolve and understanding.  A warm presence fills Rey’s chest, whispering sweet words in her ear that she can’t hear, won’t remember until later.  The tent that housed the computers, where they’d made their makeshift tech station during the battle, was now alight in flames.

_Take care of him,_ the Force says, in a voice Rey knows well.

And then it’s gone, leaving a gaping hole in her chest.  It’s cold, like she’s been stabbed through with an icicle and it’s seeped down beneath her flesh and blood to make a home in her bones.  Agony tears her heart to shreds, and she falls to her knees as Ben screams.

Leia Organa is dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my lovelies!
> 
> Killing Leia was probably the second hardest decision I made when writing this fic. But, the fact of the matter is, Carrie won't be in EPIX, and while I believe she deserves a proper send-off, she unfortunately just won't get one.
> 
> There's a good possibility she would have died in IX anyway, but at least this way there was a (small) amount of closure with Ben. But, again, I think that's why their last conversation didn't go exactly the way I wanted it to.
> 
> Things were bound to get left unsaid.
> 
> When I initially started this fic, I hadn't intended on killing anyone. But plans change, unfortunately.
> 
> ANYWAY!
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, even though it was kind of sad.
> 
> LEAVE ME COMMENTS AND KUDOS PLEASE! My life is in shambles right now, you kids are holding me up. Lol.
> 
> I love you! I'll see you on Friday!


	35. Chapter 35

Anguish was never meant to be felt this purely.

Killing his father had nearly destroyed him, nearly caused him to lose his grasp on his sanity.  He might have, had it not been for Rey.  Now, his father haunted him, a demon of a past he was trying so hard to forget, behind his closed eyelids where that red blade illuminates the surprised understanding across Han Solo’s features.  The blade created by the crystal that had called to him, that sang for him in the caves of Ilum, that hummed happily as he built the hilt around it, that screamed in pain when he’d broken it to make a blade he thought Darth Vader would be proud of, and that wept the tears he couldn’t when it took his father’s life.

Snoke had said that killing his father had split his spirit to the bone.  He’d been right, in a way.  Ben Solo did not know it was possible to feel as deeply as he did when his own father fell to his blade.  He never wanted to feel pain like that again, never wanted to lose himself like that.  His actions had been controlled by the dictator that had annexed his mind, manipulated to the point that he thought he had a choice when there had never been.  If he never felt that type of torture again, it would be too soon.

He should have known how much worse it would be to lose his mother.

And he’s been expecting some amount of pain since it was so easy to fell his Knights with his own blade, but this anguish is a whirlpool, pulling him under the current of his own pain until he’s drowning, until he’s submerged in the torment.

Losing her was a tender kiss to his forehead.  It was her rocking him to sleep in her arms, softly singing an Alderaanian lullaby.  It was her wiping his tears away as they watched the Millennium Falcon take off without knowing when it would be back.  It was her picking him up and swinging him around, laughing; it was her long hair brushing his face as she’s bent over him, tickling his stomach until he’s crying with laughter; it was her warm embrace in the same strong arms he remembers, pulling him against her like she couldn’t bear to let go.

_You will always be my son._

Losing her was a riptide.  It was being torn open, the wound gaping and festering, infected as soon as it spread across his flesh.  It was a lightsaber blade ripping into his abdomen, igniting a fire in his body that burned all the way down to his bones.  It was a meteor shower he was caught in the middle of, battering him, knocking the air from his lungs and the sense from his mind.  It was a punch to the stomach with a jewel-encrusted gauntlet; it was a strangled cry echoing in the Force where he couldn’t feel her anymore; it was a serrated knife straight through his heart.

_And I will always love you, Ben._

There’s someone screaming, a deafening cry filling his ears with a primal sadness akin to what reverberates through his body.  His lungs are protesting, not taking in enough air, and it takes a moment to realize he’s the one making that sound.  Filling the space around them with his emotion, filling the Force with his remorse.  Because he didn’t say everything he needed to say when they last talked.  Because he’s had decades of pent-up frustration toward her that suddenly has nowhere to go, so he has to project it out.  Because his soul is on fire, and it’s drowning in ice, and he can’t figure out a way to claw out of his own skin.

They’d spoken, face-to-face for the first time in years, and Ben hadn’t even told her he was sorry.

He feels his feet move on their own.  Feels his arm swing, feels his saber as it crackles with malice through the air.  But he’s blinded by his own fury, by all these emotions churning in his stomach, trying to close the wound in his heart as they scream a chorus of disbelief in his ears.

His saber meets flesh.  He comes back to himself.

Met with the horrified expression of General Hux, who stares down at the blade in Ben’s hand where it disappears in his abdomen.  Ben feels the fury across his features as he twists the blade, driving it deeper into Hux’s body before wrenching it out.

The General falls to his knees, holding the wound in his stomach as though he can prevent his own inevitable death.  He topples to the ground as Ben stands above him, a benevolent god in his power, in his ruthless anger.  The light leaves his eyes, his last breath escapes his lungs, and Ben feels nothing.

A small hand on his back makes him shout as he whirs on the next enemy, lightsaber still lit and an angry scowl across his face.  He feels the fear pulsing from those surrounding him, weapons raised to fire on him at any given moment.  And he wants to kill them all, but not even watching Hux die gave him satisfaction.  There is only emptiness.  A cavern in his soul, so deep the light can’t reach, filled only with things left unsaid.

Until he turns on his next opponent and finds the soft face of Rey, contorted with her own sorrow, eyes filled with unshed tears.  There is no fear from her, only understanding.  Once he feels himself, he feels her again across the bond.  He no longer sees the weapons aimed at him.  He only sees her.

Her hands make their way to his face, one thumb tracing the scar she gave him, and Ben suddenly finds himself exhausted, weighted by his own emotions.  He falls to his knees, and Rey pulls him to her, wrapping her arms around his head as his snake around her waist, dropping the hilt of his saber to the ground.  He buries his face in her tunic as she cards her hands through his hair.

And Ben Solo weeps.

They are silent tears, absorbed into her clothes before they can track down his face.  He inhales deeply, taking in her scent and committing it to memory.  He’d forgotten how his mother smelled years ago, and he’d be damned if he didn’t get the chance to remember how Rey smelled, like sand and sun and flowers.  She presses her understanding across the bond and doesn’t attempt to hide her own loss from him, which is somehow comforting.  To know that they both lost someone important.

There are people, ex-Stormtroopers and Resistance members and prisoners alike shuffling around awkwardly until Rose starts shouting commands, her own voice cracked with grief.  She must know that only one thing could make Ben lose himself like this.  She must know that they lost their leader.  He hears FN-2187 somewhere behind him, also shouting orders, but his ears are deaf to anything outside of Rey’s soothing murmurings as she runs her fingers through his hair and whispers across the bond that she would help him through this.

Rose says something softly to Rey, who moves just slightly to look at the girl, and Ben glances up to see her nod.  When she looks back down at him, she wipes her thumbs beneath his eyes.

“You’ve finally convinced me,” she says softly, and he gives her a confused look.  She smiles mischievously.  “That you’re human.  Droids don’t cry.”  He manages a smile, she being the only person that could illicit such a response from him in this devastating time.  Pulling him to his feet, he cups her face in his hands and kisses her.

“I hardly got to speak with her,” he says softly.  “And she didn’t forgive me for what I did.”

“No,” Rey agrees, never one to sugarcoat anything.  “But she is still your mother.  She loves you, Ben.  No matter what form her soul takes.”

“I know,” he responds, taking a slow breath.  “I know.”

They stay like that for a moment, before Rey pulls away and Ben realizes that there’s no one left in the clearing.  The cannon that fired the torpedo was powered down, everyone from the transports seemed to either have switched sides or been imprisoned.

The Resistance pseudo-command center was gone, but people were surging forward.  There would be time to mourn later, once everything was filed away in a neat little compress.  Any remaining TIE-fighters in the air were being lowered and surrendered.

They’d survived.  The First Order had fallen, as it was meant to.  As, Ben assumes, it always would have, collapsing under the weight of its own power.  The model was never sustainable – complete galactic control was the daydream of a lunatic.  Ruling with an iron fist got the Empire destroyed, ruling too leisurely is what dismantled the Republic.  There was a compromise, and Ben can only hope his plan is the beginning of such a movement.

Leia had uploaded the files on his data stick, but what she’d done with them Ben had no idea.  He had copies, if need be.

He’d been hoping she could explain, but as the former Supreme Leader, he supposed it was his job just as much as it had been hers.

“Rose took Ilecce to the med tent,” Rey says after a moment, pulling him back to the present.  “She was complaining the whole time, stating that she’d never been waited on by a med droid.”

“She’s also never taken a blaster to the hip, so there’s a first time for everything,” Ben retorts, pulling Rey close once more.  He knows there are far more important things they should be attending to, but he’s desperate to steal just a few more minutes alone with her.  Pressing their foreheads together, he steals another kiss, caressing her face.  She gives him a sad smile, and he wishes desperately that he could make her happy.

He was the reason for their sorrow.  He just had no idea how to take it away.

“You don’t have to,” Rey hushes his thoughts.  “Just feel it, Ben.  Don’t ignore it; it’ll never go away if you do that.”  He nods, knowing she’s right but not quite knowing how to do that.  Letting emotions like these rush over them, demanding to be felt instead of squashed aside was a foreign concept.  He’d spent so long relying on his anger.  Who was he without it?

Looking at Rey, he knew it wouldn’t be terribly hard to figure it out.

He pulled her against his chest, kissing her temple as she buried her face in his shoulder.  His turn to comfort her, giving the understanding she sought unconsciously wrapped up in his arms.

“Ben,” Rey started, taking a shuddering breath.  “I…”  The bond between them thrummed familiarly.  It took a moment, but Ben realized she was giving the admission she’d denied him on Ahch-To, what seemed like years ago.  “I have never belonged anywhere, not truly.”  She trailed off, and he stayed quiet, allowing her to get the words out at her own pace.  She pressed her face into his neck, and he ran his hand up and down her spine.  “But I… I feel like I belong right here, with you.  You’ve become home to me, Ben Solo.”  He took in a sharp breath, then pulled back to look down at her.

Her eyes held nothing but honesty, bared and open and beautiful.  He couldn’t help himself – he leaned down and captured her lips with his, molding together in that perfect way they seemed to.  Like they were made for one another.  Her words hung between them, filling some of the cavern that ripped open with Leia’s death as she kissed him back with as much fervor as she could manage.

He doesn’t want any more words to be left unsaid.

He pulls away slowly, pressing a kiss into her jaw before whispering into her ear.  Words meant only for her.  Words he would never consider saying to another.  “I love you.”  She doesn’t respond, but he feels her stiffen for a moment before pressing a kiss to his cheek, feels the wet trail her tears leave behind on his skin.  “I love you, Rey.”  And maybe he wasn’t absolutely sure of what that meant, but fuck if he couldn’t bear the thought of trying to figure it out without her.

It’s a strange sort of thing, because he’s not certain when it happened.  There were so many moments, so many puzzle pieces that fell into place.  Stars that lit up his night sky like constellations, each one a separate memory of Rey pricking holes in the blackness over his life.  Touching her hand across the bond.  Seeing her in the Falcon’s escape pod aboard the Supremacy with that smile on her face and warmth in her eyes he never felt he deserved.  Giving him the strength to finally stop his torment and kill his abuser.  Fighting alongside her against the Praetorian guard.  When she reopened the bond, the utter shock on her face, as though she couldn’t believe he was real.  Seeing her across lightyears, the mischievous glint in her eye when she asked him to join her on Tatooine.  Following her to the planet that began his legacy; fighting the Tusken Raiders; the delicacy she used when picking through the remains of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s hut; the fire in her eyes when she screamed at him to open up; the gentle caress of her body against his, the first time they explored one another.

A thousand things, memories he’d cherish for the rest of his days.  No singular moment to define his feelings, but a hundred falling into place, forming the beautiful mosaic of her within his mind.  He projects it to her, the way he sees her, and she’s rendered speechless.  Within his mind, she is the epitome of light and goodness and beauty.  A beacon in the storm of his life, a calming hand within his mind.  She is everything to him, and he pushes that to her.

_I never want you to doubt what you mean to me_ , he whispers into her mind.  _This is my truth._

She’s crying in earnest now, a mixture of sadness and happiness cascading down her face.  Because how can this moment exist, so perfect and pure, when they’re surrounded by so much misery?  He doesn’t have a response, so he kisses her forehead as an answer instead.

“We should help,” she says after a moment, and he nods, giving her space as she wipes her tears away with her arm wraps.  They move toward the camp, Resistance members no longer running around with the urgency they had been previous.  The war was won.  Prisoner stormtroopers were being dis-armored and shackled, First Order officers were being tallied and listed.  Ben didn’t care what happened to those that had refused to be persuaded.

Rey reached down and squeezed his hand reassuringly, making their way through the encampment slowly.  She was paying acute attention to their surroundings – the scorches like claw marks in the dirt, the blackened ground that crunched with ash beneath their feet, the littered pieces of metal from exploded ships and the debris from the Ascendancy.  But Ben couldn’t look at anything except Rey.  She traipsed through these grounds exuding a confidence he could only fake.  She was among a number of people who felt she betrayed them, but her head was high, and her hand was proudly wrapped in his.  He had never felt such pride; he had never felt so adored.  He had never loved someone so much.

Perhaps it was his distraction that led to the next series of events.  Perhaps, if he hadn’t been so wrapped up in her, in the sway of her hips, or the way her hair fell gently down her shoulders, bobbing with every step, or the way her eyes glanced around wildly, looking at the destruction, her mind idly wondering how much these pieces would have been worth were she still a scavenger, he could have avoided the next happenings altogether.

Unfortunately, he was too busy drinking her in to realize that some of the fighters were still in the air.  He was too wrapped up in her hand around his, her thumb lightly stroking his knuckles, to see the TIE-fighter take a shot to the wing.  He didn’t hear the way it screeched through the air, or the pop as the pilot ejected, sending the ship careening down to the moon wildly.

Someone shouted a warning at the same time someone screamed, and then Ben felt it.  The ripple in the Force, like an alarm blaring in his head.  He looked up, and his next actions were all instinctual.  His hands shot toward Rey, using a blast of his power to send her flying.  He didn’t look to see where she landed, only knew by feel alone that she would be safe.

However, there was no time for him to move.

But in that final moment, he couldn’t regret anything.

Because, after everything, at least he’d gotten to tell her.

At least he’d gotten to love her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgive me.


	36. in which our space nerd has to deal with the consequences of her actions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure how many of you actually listen to my song recommendations, but I'd like to ask all of you to listen to Hold On by Chord Overstreet (TW: attempted suicide reference) before reading this chapter.

“So, what happened, exactly?” Poe asked, jolting Rey from her reverie.  She’d been thinking about Ben, of course, as anyone could have guessed.  Not only from the silence that seemed to permeate whatever room she was in – which was only this one, as it had been for days – but by the tears that tracked down her cheeks of their own accord.  Usually without her notice.

Rey sighed.  He, of course, wasn’t the first person to ask, but ever since Leia’s death, Poe had been unanimously appointed the leader, his rank rising from Commander to Admiral overnight.  Ben’s plan had been uploaded into Lando Calrissian’s Alsakan starship, which was good – the datastick that had originally held the information had been destroyed when Ben was…

Shaking her head, Rey looked up at Poe.  She needed to give her official account of the events as they transpired to the temporary leader of the galaxy.  Poe vehemently denied that this would be a lasting scenario, though no one knew who else it could be.  Leia was gone, the rest of the command destroyed with the Raddus, and Lando adamantly refused to take any sort of responsibility within the galaxy.  As soon as they were back on their feet, he said that he was going home and going back into retirement.  He was getting too old for all this bullshit, as he claimed.

Rey didn’t blame him.  He’d lost all three of his closest friends within a few months of each other.  She wanted to retire, herself.

“Where do you want me to start?” Rey asked, her voice hoarse.  She hadn’t been sleeping, or eating much really, her whole body wanting to shut down.

“After the cannon fired on the command tent,” Poe responded coolly, though his eyes betrayed his emotion.  This was hard for all of them.  They still hadn’t held Leia’s funeral, it felt too disrespectful.

Or, Rey made them feel bad that they might even consider sending Leia off now, with everything that happened.

“Ben killed Hux,” she said around the lump in her throat.  “He lost himself for a moment there, when we felt Leia slip away.  And he didn’t hurt anyone else.  I could feel it, you know,” she supplied, her eyes glassy.  “Killing Hux didn’t offer him the satisfaction he desired with his mother’s death.  There was no retribution for him, Poe.”

“And then what?” Poe asked, not allowing Rey to veer off-track of this conversation.  Rey took a shuddering breath.

“And then he broke down for a moment, as one might expect to when they lose their mother.”  Rey chuckled heartlessly.  “Though from the whisperings around here, people never expected Supreme Leader Kylo Ren to have any emotions at the loss of Leia Organa.”  The words are meant to come out acidly, but she’s far too tired.

Poe merely nods, urging her on silently.

“Once he came back, we took a moment to collect ourselves.”  She squares her shoulders, trying to push that memory away for the time being.  “Then, we began walking back toward camp to offer our hands where they were needed.”  She shrugs.  “Cleanup or discussion or planning, we didn’t care.  We just wanted to be able to do it together.”

Poe cracks a small smile, and it makes him look so much more tired.  “And then the TIE fell?”

“I didn’t see it,” Rey said robotically.  “I just heard someone screaming, and then Ben was throwing me.”

“What did you do then?”

“It wasn’t about what I did,” Rey says fiercely.  “It was about what I felt.  I felt that discarded hunk of metal hurdling toward him, even as I flew fifty yards away.  Everything I did was blind.”

“I need a real answer, Rey.”

“What do you expect me to say?” she shouts, slamming her hands on the table and standing up.  “That while that ship was crashing into the only person I have ever loved, I meant to throw it so it landed on the transport carrying those prisoners?”  The tears are flowing again, and she doesn’t even have it in her to wipe them away.  She’s too furious.  “That while I was flying through the air, because Ben Solo is a good man who feels far more than he would ever admit, and he pushed me out of the way, my thought was to kill all of those people?  I was trying to save Ben, and damn it, I will not feel bad about that, Poe!”

She did feel bad, though.  She felt terrible, the guilt eating away at her flesh and making home in her stomach.  It nested there, rousing from its slumber when she was alone with her thoughts to remind her of the lives she took, accidently or otherwise.  The TIE was so close to impaling Ben, to crushing him and killing him.  She reached out with the Force and threw that thing as far as she could, all on instinct – she knew she’d thrown it perhaps a second, maybe less, after Ben threw her.  She didn’t see it at all.

And it hit a transport full of Stormtrooper detainees, killing them all in an explosive inferno.  She hadn’t even hit the ground yet.

Poe sighs, rubbing his temples.  “You really love him, don’t you?”

Rey sat back down, deflating as the anger rushes away.  She looks at the bacta tank next to her, where Ben is suspended with an oxygen mask around his face.  He’d been there for three days now, in a trauma-induced coma while his body heals.  Though she’d been quick enough to save him from the brunt of the damage, when she’d reached out, she unintentionally turned the ship and a wing had managed to clip him in the chest, sending him flying through the air with a four-inch transparisteel pipe through his sternum.  The impact broke fifteen of his ribs, collapsed a lung, dislocated his shoulder, snapped three vertebrae and nearly shattered his breastbone.

But he was alive.

Ilecce had managed to save him, her blaster wound reopening when she rushed out of the med tent and put all of her energy into preserving his life until they could get him onto the Alsakan ship and into a bacta tank.  Having been mostly been asleep at first, the bolt wound in her side had finally healed, and Rey was convinced Ilecce had been staying in the medical ward just to keep an eye on her ever since.  She and Rey were rapidly becoming close friends.

“Yes,” Rey finally responded, looking up at Poe.  _And I haven’t even had the chance to tell him yet._

“I can tell,” Poe says immediately, also looking up at Ben.  “It’s funny, though.  I always thought you and Finn had a thing.”  Rey perks up at this, staring at him with confusion all over her face.

“I thought you liked Finn?” she asks, and Poe’s eyes widen, a blush creeping across his cheeks.

“Well, I mean,” he starts, rubbing his neck awkwardly.  “You picked up on that, did you?”

"Poe, you’re almost as obvious as Rose is,” Rey retorts, a rare smile on her face.  “Every time you look at him, there’s a longing in your eyes, and you fiddle with that ring around your neck.”

“I just—You can never be sure, you know?”

“No,” Rey deadpanned, looking at Ben again.  “Poe, the only way you’ll know is if you ask.”  Poe took a deep breath, staring at Rey, the deep circles under her eyes.  Ben, by all rights, should have died the other day.  Even the med droids didn’t understand how he was still holding on.  And Rey was next to him every step of the way, waiting for the day they could pull him out of that tank and he would open his eyes.

Poe wasn’t sure if that was what it meant to love someone.  When Finn had been hurt on Starkiller, Poe had wanted him to survive, but it wasn’t an all-encompassing feeling like what Rey displayed.  So perhaps his feelings for the former Stormtrooper were merely a crush.

But he supposed it was worth exploring.

“I’ll make an official report of what you told me,” Poe said, snapping back into Admiral for the sake of saving himself from embarrassment at the hands of Rey, who was blunt almost to a fault.  “But, Rey, we all know you didn’t mean to do that.  We just…  We have to explore every avenue.”

“I know,” Rey responds tiredly.  “How are the new recruits?”

The former Stormtroopers that had, essentially, fallen for Ben’s persuasion had been eager to show their loyalty to the Resistance (Poe still hadn’t thought of a better name and wasn’t sure why the decision was left up to him in the first place).  There were over five thousand of them, jumping off the deep end and giving everything they had into building Ben’s vision for the future.  When word spread across the galaxy that the First Order had fallen, recruits from all over were suddenly showing up at their doorstep and offering their services.  It was unlike anything Poe had ever seen – that they were all so passionate about their homes and the lives of those they loved.

Once they learned that the reformation of the Resistance was headed by the former Supreme Leader, all of the voluntary soldiers implemented by Kylo Ren joined, as well.

Hundreds were coming every day, entire planets turning their belief toward the Resistance.  They even got the support of Naboo, finally, which felt a little ironic after everything that transpired.  Queen Brennisca had her Hand publicly executed, stating that no First Order sympathizers within her monarchy would be tolerated, and droves of them started turning themselves in to avoid a similar fate.  Many of them were Stormtroopers, and Finn was heralding reform classes for them, along with a handful of other defects, to retrain them on how to be regular citizens.

The day after the battle above Coruscant, Poe got notification that six accounts had been opened up in his name across various systems, and he suddenly had access to over a billion credits.  Only one account offered any explanation, a simple message delivered from the banker.

_To restart_.

Minutes later, he’d gotten a projection call from Finn, who was freaking out about the notification he got that four accounts under his name had been opened, and he had no idea where they came from, only that he now had millions of credits and a single note.

_To reform._

When they’d told Rey, she cried silently and stared at Ben, and Poe had no idea why.

Ben’s friend, Ilecce, had a notification, as well, that Poe helped her take from her cot in the med center.  She had gotten an amount similar to Finn, and her note attached had been a little longer.

_In case I can’t teach._

Ilecce cried, as well, and then Poe suddenly understood.

As Rey got a few precious hours of sleep that night, for the first time since they boarded the Alsakan ship, Poe stood in front of Ben’s bacta tank and willed to any of the gods listening that he wake up.

He was more like his mother than any of them, save for Rey, ever realized.  And Poe, for the first time, wanted to get to know that version of him.  The one that was more Leia than Snoke.  The one Rey seemed so convinced he was.  But to do that, Ben needed to wake up.

Poe sighed, patting Rey on the shoulder before he left, leaving her alone with Ben once more.

It was quiet in the ward; there had been so few injuries that couldn’t be healed by bacta patches in the med tent on Coruscant’s moon that no one needed to be admitted after the Alsakan ship came planetside.  Except Ben and Ilecce, who had left about a half hour prior to the cafeteria.  She said she’d bring Rey back some food, but Rey knew it was more to give her the privacy she needed.

She stared at Ben, the wisps of hair that framed his face as he floated in the jelly-like gunk, the strong line of his jaw, the scar that ran down the middle of his chest, his broad frame, and once more urged the Force to wake him up.

“Please,” she whispers quietly, lying her head on the cot she was sitting beside.  “Please let him wake up.”

... 

Rey came to slowly.  It took a moment for her to realize she’d fallen asleep, and she snapped herself awake all at once, looking around wildly to make sure nothing had changed.  To make sure she hadn’t missed anything.

Ben was still surrounded by the bacta as it worked to heal his body, and Rey sighed with relief before she realized she wasn’t alone in the room.

Standing beside Ben, staring up at him with a wistful expression, was a man Rey recognized, but her mind faltered.  What she was seeing before her was impossible.  There was no plausible explanation.  She’d lost her mind, clearly.

As if hearing her thoughts, Anakin Skywalker turned, meeting her gaze evenly.  He looked just as he had in Artoo’s later holos – young, handsome, blond hair brushing his shoulders, small scar above his eye, and decades of knowledge behind his eyes.  But there was a light in his gaze she’d not seen him wear in the few hours she spent studying his life.

She suddenly felt incredibly intrusive, as though she’d spied on someone still among the living.

Still, he was surrounded by an ethereal blue light, casting an odd glow around his person that, she realized after a moment, didn’t reflect in the glass of Ben’s tank.

“Either I’m dreaming, or I’ve gone mad,” Rey blurted out, and Anakin’s eyes danced with amusement that reminded her so much of his grandson she thought she might cry.

“Neither, fortunately,” he responds, a smile on his lips that looked too much like Luke.  It was so strange, seeing the predecessor of those she cherished most, seeing their expressions and facial features on him.  Rey gaped, blinking rapidly, as though she could dispel the illusion.

“How, then?” she asks, standing slowly, like the wrong approach will make him disappear.  She can’t decide if that’s what she wants or not.

“The Force works in very mysterious ways, Rey,” Anakin responds, looking up at Ben once more.  “By all rights, this is not a form I should have been able to take after my death.  After I became one with the Force.”  He looked to her again.  “Not to say that others can’t, it’s just not anything I practiced, as… distracted as I was, in my later life.”

“You do look awfully… young,” Rey agreed, and Anakin smiled again.  “So, what, you’re a projection of the Force?  Willing me to see what I desire?”

“Something like that,” he muses, crossing his arms.  “Though my consciousness belongs to me.  No one is ever truly gone, Rey, not even after death.”  At this, Rey bristles.

“So you’ve just been gallivanting as part of the Force for the past thirty years?” she asks, gesturing to Ben.  “And you didn’t think it’d be a good idea to present yourself to your incredibly misguided grandson and tell him he was being a kriffing idiot!?”

She’s expecting anger, like he’d portrayed to Padme and Obi-Wan on Mustafar in the holo, but instead his eyes grow somber as he stares up at Ben.  “You don’t realize how difficult it is, to watch your own blood make all the same mistakes you made as a rash, misunderstood child.”

“Then why not talk to him?” Rey huffs, putting her hands on her hips.  She should feel threatened – this is Darth Vader, after all, the most feared man in the galaxy for many years.  And she has no idea whether this version of him could cause her harm.  He was part of the Force, after all, and it had allowed her and Ben to touch across lightyears.  But she’s angry and defensive.  “Why not right your wrongs vicariously by leading Ben to a lighter path?”

“Because I wasn’t the one he was calling to,” Anakin responds quietly, his eyes still trained on Ben’s sedated form.  “He wanted Darth Vader; a man who no longer exists.”

“If you’d presented yourself to him in this version—”

“Do you believe he would have listened to me?” Anakin asks patiently, raising his eyebrows.  “Lost in his anger and Snoke’s manipulation the way he was, do you honestly think Kylo Ren would have taken anything Anakin Skywalker said at face value?”  Rey looks at Ben, too, thinking for a moment, but she has no good response.  Because she knows.  “Ben needed to save himself, Rey.”

“Then why are you here now?” she asks after a moment.  A thought strikes her like a punch to the stomach, and she takes in a breath, staring wide-eyed at Ben’s peaceful face.  “Are you—have you come for him?  To help him… become one with the Force?”  Her hands are shaking, because she couldn’t bear the thought of Anakin Skywalker being his own grandson’s reaper.

“No,” Anakin responds, and the humor has returned to his eyes.  “Surely you know by now that a Skywalker doesn’t die unless they choose to.”  Rey can’t help but smile as relief floods her.

“Then why?”

“I’ve come to speak with you,” Anakin responds simply, and Rey looks at him with wide eyes.  “Don’t look so shocked.  You act like this is the first time.”

“Not the…”  Rey racks her mind, trying to figure out what he’s referring to.  Then, it clicks into place, and she gawks.  “The man in my vision on Barkhesh.  That was you.”

“I thought it was quite funny that you didn’t realize right away, what with your indulgence into my life and all,” he responds, a broad smile across his face.  Rey looks away, embarrassment flooding her cheeks, but Anakin seems casual.  “Curiosity gets the best of all of us, Rey.  Plus, there’s little to care about in this state of being.”  Rey tucks her thumbs into her fists, biting her lip.

“Are you here to instill some ancient Jedi revelations on me?” she asks after a moment, and Anakin laughs.

“No,” he says thoughtfully.  “There were many things my son was confused about, Rey, but the end of the Jedi was not one of them.”  He looks at Ben once more.  “The Sith ended with me, as it was meant to.  The Jedi ended with Luke.  But the Force is never-ending.  It is meant to be utilized by those it deems worthy.  Like you, and like Ben.”  He meets her eyes, the blue within them intense and striking, and all Rey can see is Luke.  “And like the many others who need proper training.  Those Ben has been searching the galaxy for.”

“What?” Rey asks, her eyes narrowing.  “Ben’s been looking for Force-sensitives?”

“He tasked the Knights to do so,” Anakin explains.  “There were stipulations, of course, which I’m sure Ben will explain later.”

“How could he not tell me about this?” Rey fumes, looking up at Ben.  She bangs on the glass separating them, knowing it wouldn’t disturb him in his healing.  “You have a lot of explaining to do when you wake up, Ben Solo!”

Anakin laughs again, shaking his head.  “You remind me so much of her.”  Rey looks up at him, eyes crinkling in confusion.  Who does he mean?  Leia?  Padme?  She didn’t see herself in either, truthfully.  “My Padawan, Ahsoka.  She had the same fiery spirit, the same conviction.”  He gets a distant look in his eye, and they turn down, as though he’s remembering something unpleasant and sad.

“I saw her, in the holos,” Rey says softly.  “She was wonderful.  Strong and smart and resourceful.”

“Yes,” Anakin agrees, his eyes locking with Rey’s once more.  “Rey, you know the Force.  Though you still feel confused at times, there is much that you have to offer those like you within the galaxy.  Pass on what you know.  You and Ben were meant for this.  Meant to teach others the will of the Force.”

“What if…” she trails off, but Anakin looks at her expectantly.  “What if history repeats itself?”  She can’t really think of a kinder way to word her thoughts.  Anakin understands, though.

“You said to Ben once that you wanted to be part of the gray.  Without the Dark or the Light.  Did you mean it?”  Rey could only nod, her cheeks heating up with realization that someone might have been watching other happenings on Ahch-To.  “There is Gray, Rey.  The Jedi’s failure was refusing the darkness altogether, and the Sith’s was refusing the light.  But there is balance, and it’s been realized within the Force.”

“With me and Ben,” she supplies, stating it though she means it as a question.  Anakin nods, a small smile on his face.

“The Jedi and the Sith had their creeds, both of which are outdated and useless.  But there is a middle.  There is a Gray.

_"There is no Dark Side, nor a Light Side.  There is only the Force,”_ Anakin says slowly, and something in Rey’s mind clicks, urging her to commit this to memory.  _“I will do what I must to keep the balance.  There is no good without evil, but evil must not be allowed to flourish.  There is passion, yet peace.  There is serenity, yet emotion.  There is chaos, yet order._ _”_   He finishes with a slow breath, his eyes closed, and Rey feels a deep realization dawning within her.  An understanding within the Force, similar to the one she had when she’d yelled at Finn that the Dark Side was a concept.  Because it was, and Anakin Skywalker just reiterated that.

“Is it lonely?” she asks after a moment, looking to Anakin.  “Death, I mean.”

“Loneliness doesn’t exist, not truly.”  Anakin smiles at her.  “Within the Force, you’re never alone.  Not with so many things in this galaxy that you’re connected to.”

“Do you still feel Padme, then?”  She realizes, as the question slips out, that it’s probably a painful topic for him.  He looks at her with a sad smile, and Rey feels awful for bringing it up.

“Padme is always with me,” he says.  “I cannot feel her, within the Force.  She wasn’t sensitive to it, so her death was permanent.  But she’ll never leave me, not really.  That’s what it means to love someone.”  There’s a beat of silence, because Rey doesn’t know how to fill it.  “As Vader, I hated myself every day for killing her.  For killing Anakin Skywalker, for thinking I killed our unborn child.  It’s what fed me the drive I needed to continue my legacy as a Sith Lord.”  He looks up once more at Ben.  “Ben’s hatred was never so vast or deep.  He was never meant to walk my path, no matter how much Snoke convinced him that it was his destiny.”  Anakin smiles, and it’s warm, reminding her of the soft smiles she’s stolen from Ben over the past few weeks.  “Thank you for helping him see his true identity, Rey.  He saved himself, but you lit the way.”

“I never could have done it if you hadn’t urged me to Tatooine,” she says honestly, and Anakin merely nods, a mischievous glint in his eye she recognizes as Leia.  He puts his hand on the glass encasing Ben, taking a deep breath.

“Oh, tell him the files are pass-protected by ‘Naberrie oh-seven-one-three’,” Anakin said suddenly, and Rey stared at him like he’d lost his mind.  Could one do that as a ghost?  Go crazy?  “Our anniversary.”

“What?”  But Anakin is still staring at Ben, a sad glint in his eye.

“We’ll talk later, kid,” he says.

And then Rey is alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So like.
> 
> On a scale of one to Hux, how much do you guys hate me right now?
> 
> I know I was unintentionally misleading, but I said once, ages ago, that I was evil. And none of you seemed to believe me.
> 
> I'm the worst author ever lmfao.
> 
> Truthfully, I toyed with the idea of killing Ben on and off after they went to Ahch-To. But. My thought process on this is, what would be the point in a proper redemption if Ben just dies before he can realize it fully? It was too painful for me.
> 
> I alluded to this a lot - there was foreshadowing that'll be fully realized in the next chapter or two (depending on how I decide to split up what I've written.)
> 
> I purposefully didn't update on Tuesday, either. To keep you guys in suspense. I would hate me if I were you guys.
> 
> (GutterKitty, I hope the woe-shrooms are dispelled).
> 
> But, gentle reminder that I love you all. Kudos and comments are beautiful and make me happy.
> 
> I'll be back on Tuesday (I promise).


	37. in which there's two space nerds, finally, again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, Can I by Tedy pairs well with this chapter.

It’s the next day that the med droids deem Ben healed enough to exit the bacta tank.  They pull him out, wash his unconscious form, and lay him on one of the cots in the next room.  Rey, of course, watches it all with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension.  Though the bacta had healed his body – the droids had to assure her at least six times that he wouldn’t be paralyzed, that his lungs were fine, that all the breaks in his chest had healed perfectly – he still wasn’t awake.  Ilecce stayed near, though she’d officially moved into the crew quarters after the med droids beeped incessantly about how she was taking up too much space.  As though they didn’t have twenty empty cots just lying around.

Rey refused to move.  Once Ben was placed in a bed, she sat by his side with her hand in his, marveling at how soft his skin was – a by-product of the bacta submersion.  Poe, Finn, and Rose all came in and out, bringing her food she was finally eating, since Anakin had assured her that Ben would wake up.  Ilecce was the most consistent, usually leaving when Rey fell asleep or when she was summoned to help the crew with another task.

“It’s strange,” she said once when Rose popped in and asked her for help fixing a scion engine.  “I spent much of my time after leaving Luke’s academy on my own, running these bogus missions for Snoke.  The only company I really got was from the Knights.”

“Does it make you sad?” Rey asked, placing a hand over the Mirialan woman’s.  She’d abandoned her black ensemble completely, wearing a set of intricate purple and green robes.  A gift from Lando, of course.

“The camaraderie I shared with the Knights was never truly genuine,” Ilecce responded after a moment of thought.  “We were work colleagues, nothing more.”

“Then why did you save Ben?” Rey asked, unable to help herself.  Ilecce smiled.

“Because I was saving Ben,” she shrugged, “at the sacrifice of Kylo Ren.”  She placed a hand on Rey’s shoulder as she made her way toward the door.  “These are good people, Rey.  I’ve committed atrocities in the name of the Dark Side, and they’ve accepted me anyway.  This was a gift you gave me.  This is why you’ll always be my close friend.”  She left before Rey could respond, but that didn’t stop the few stray tears from tracking down her face.

She fell asleep hunched over Ben’s cot, in an unforgiving metal chair designed more for hospital staff than an annoying significant other who refused to leave, but Rey didn’t want to disturb him by lying beside him, and she wouldn’t dream of being four feet away on another bed.  That was too far.

Her sleep was dreamless and black, but she could almost feel Ben’s hand, running softly through her hair, caressing her face in that lovingly familiar way.

She didn’t want to open her eyes, didn’t want the dream to fade, but consciousness was coming too fast.  She blinked, her eyebrows pulling together, sleep interrupted too soon by the ghost fingers and by the uncomfortable position.

Except she was awake now, and the hand hadn’t moved.  It rested against her face, and Rey’s eyes shot open, sitting up much too fast.  Her hunched back popped in protest, but Rey didn’t care.

She was finally, finally staring at the liquid amber eyes of Ben Solo.

“You’re awake,” she gasped, feeling her eyes pricking with tears of relief.

“I am,” he agreed, his voice a hoarse croak from disuse.  “Not real sure how, honestly.”  She grabbed her glass of water from the table behind her, holding it to him.  He took two grateful pulls, then handed it back, his eyes swimming as they met her face.

“You scared me to death, Ben,” she said, scrambling to sit on the cot, to be eye-level with him.

“And yet here you sit,” he responded sarcastically, clearing his throat, and Rey couldn’t help herself anymore.  She threw her arms around his shoulders and pulled him close, tears flowing freely now.  Because he was alive and awake and _whole_ , and no one should be as lucky as she is in this moment.  “What happened?” he asked, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her so her body was flush against his.

“What do you remember?”  Her voice was muffled as she buried her face in his neck.

“The TIE-fighter, pushing you out of the way.”  His voice was deep, subdued, and she could hear it reverberate through his chest.

“Quite the display, by the way,” she responded.  “If you hadn’t just been mortally wounded I would pummel you.”  She felt his laugh, felt his lips brush the crown of her head.  “While I was flying – unceremoniously, I might add – through the air, I managed to push the TIE out of the way, but you still got hit by one of the wings.”  Ben seemed to consider this.

“How long was I out?”

“You spent four days in a bacta tank, then another two days in this bed,” she said honestly, hoping she didn’t scare him with the knowledge that he’d been decommissioned for almost a week.  “Your body basically shut down because of the stress it went through, but Ilecce and the bacta put you back together.”

“I seem to have all my limbs, as well,” he rumbled, and Rey chuckled.  “What of the battle?”

“We can talk politics later,” she responded, pulling back to look at him.  She was afraid to hurt him, though she knew his body was whole and undamaged now, after the bacta.  Still, she moved carefully, pulling most of her weight onto her knees as she leaned in to kiss him.  He kissed her back with a lot more strength one might expect to have after six days comatose, but Ben was always surprising her.

She pulled away first, brushing her thumbs along his cheeks, over the ridge of his scar, down his jawline to his neck.  Her fingers danced in the stray curls that rested there, and she couldn’t help but smile.

“You look exhausted,” he said after a moment.  “Have you left this place, or have you been sleeping in a chair?”

"I didn’t want to stray too far,” she admitted, and he sighed, rolling his eyes.  “Plus, I didn’t want to miss this moment, when you finally woke up.”  Ben pinched the bridge of his nose, that endearing motion that made her grin.

“You should have been taking care of yourself,” he scolds her, and she just shrugs, not convinced he wouldn’t do the same if roles had been reversed.

Instead of letting him complain more, she wraps her arms around him again and kisses him, gaining some leverage by positioning herself above him.  His lips molded perfectly against hers, and she was once more overwhelmed by that feeling of coming _home_ , digging her hands into his hair and pressing herself against him.

He had both of his hands wrapped around her waist, one hand stroking up and down her lower spine, leaving a trail of blazing heat in its wake.  He pressed her closer, and she deepened the kiss, running her tongue along his bottom lip.  Tasting him, feeling his body pressed against hers, was almost too much, and if she didn’t stop now she’d take him in this hospital bed where anyone could walk in.

She pulled away once more, and one of Ben’s hands came up, caressing her face.  “Cyar’ika, you will be the death of me,” he says with a smile.

“I think we’ve had enough near-death experiences between the two of us to propel us through the rest of our lives,” she retorts, and Ben chuckles, kissing her jaw.

A med droid wheels in then, and Rey climbs down from her perch on Ben’s bed to allow the droid to analyze his current state of being.

“Heart rate slightly accelerated, but all other vital signs appear normal,” the droid drones monotonously, and Rey gives Ben a knowing look.  He shakes his head.  “Patient exhibiting miraculous recovery from injuries.  Recommendation: release patient from care in the morning.”  And with that, the droid leaves, and Rey’s eyes light up.

“I’ll go get you some clothes,” she says, leaning down to kiss his cheek.  He grabs her hand, pulling her in for a lasting kiss, and she laughs as she tugs away.  “Ben, do you want to walk through this ship tomorrow in a hospital gown?  I’m fairly certain your entire backside would be up for display.”

“Let them look,” he growls, kissing her again.  “It’s not every day you get to see the Supreme Leader’s bare ass, is it?”  She shakes her head.

“Something must have been rattled loose up there when you were hurt,” Rey responds with a smile, tapping his head with two fingers.  She kisses him once more, letting it linger just a moment longer than would be considered chaste.  “I’ll get you fresh robes.”

“As long as you come back,” he sighs, leaning back against his pillows in mock defeat.  She smiles, brushing his hair back.

“Always.”

* * *

 

It’s only a minute after Rey leaves that Ilecce comes in, her eyes lighting up upon seeing Ben’s eyes open.  She rushed to his side, her hands covered in engine oil and grime.

“You’re alright,” she says softly, looking him up and down.  “I didn’t think you’d survive.”

“I’m harder to kill than that,” he responds simply, sitting up so his back cracks.  He’d been lying still for too long.

“Are you hungry?  Or is that where Rey went, to get you food?”

“Clothes actually, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she brought back food, too.  She’s always eating,” he jokes, and Ilecce smiles, as well.

“I’m sure this is all new for you, being confined to a bed,” she chuckles, and Ben shakes his head.

“I’ve been awake for a half hour and I’m ready to move.”  When was the last time they’d talked like this?  Like two friends, rather than a Master and his Knight?  When had he had the opportunity to talk to anyone like this in recent years?

Ilecce smiled, something warm that he felt he hadn’t seen in years.

“How are you?” he asks, and she looks at him in surprise, as though she hadn’t expected him to ask this question.

“I’m great, Ben.  Truly.”  She looks around the medical ward.  “This has felt like a second chance to actually do something right, for a change.  To make up for all the wrongs I’ve done.”  Ben looks at her thoughtfully.  Part of him almost wants to apologize, for leading her down the path to the darkness.  For allowing her to join him in his journey to find Snoke.  But they both know it’s a useless extension.  She chose that life, chose to be a Knight, to follow their creed, fight for the Darkness and spill the blood of hundreds.

“Rey wouldn’t tell me about the political happenings,” Ben says after a moment.  Ilecce smiles.

“Rey has little interest in politicking.  She’s headstrong, but perhaps not exactly cut out for senate life.”  Ilecce shrugs.  “Poe Dameron is acting as head of State right now as they hold elections all over the galaxy.  As you suggested, they’re getting a representative from every system to build a House of Advisors.  With Hosnian Prime gone, Coruscant has offered their city to be the planetside base for the new government.”  Ben makes a face, and Ilecce chuckles.  “They were denied, of course.  Too much of the Empire still thrives in that city.  Dameron has narrowed it down to either Eufornis Major or Corellia.”

“Eufornis Major isn’t a bad idea,” Ben says slowly.  “Did Dameron take the head seat, then?”

“Temporarily,” Ilecce says.  “After the death of… of the General, everyone voted to elect him Admiral, so he’s governing the galaxy as it stands now, but it’s not a position he enjoys much.”  There’s humor in her eyes, and Ben chuckles dryly.

“No, it’s not the glamorous lifestyle of an X-Wing pilot.”

“Oh, he’s a TIE-Silencer pilot now, Ben,” Ilecce says with a laugh.  “He took it upon himself to claim and update the ship you loaned him.  Said it was your apology gift, after the interrogation you put him through on the Finalizer.”  Ben sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose before running a hand through his hair.

“I suppose I deserve that.”

“Not to worry,” Ilecce says, patting his shoulder.  “I saved your Silencer, too.”  He gives her a thankful look just as the doors slide open.

Rey walks in, balancing a tray of food on top of a pile of fabric, followed by a small band.  Dameron is at her flank, his head high despite the deep circles under his eyes.  Following him are FN-2187 – Finn, he silently corrects himself – and the mechanic girl, Rose.  Finn still looks apprehensive toward him, but the other two seem significantly more relaxed.  Ben surmises that there might even be some sort of camaraderie developing between himself and the others.

"Ben,” Dameron says warmly, and Ben suddenly feels very exposed, sitting in a hospital bed with four people he’s not exactly familiar with standing around.  He doesn’t mind Rey, but he wants to stand up desperately, use his height as the advantage he’s accustomed to.  Rey seems to read his hesitation, and she sets the food and clothes down, sitting beside him on the cot and taking his hand.  A wave a warmth spreads over him, and the tension in his shoulders eases.

“Dameron,” Ben greets back, his voice much quieter.

“It’s good to see you awake,” Dameron responds genuinely.  Ben nods his thanks.  “I heard you’ll be cleared for release tomorrow.”

“If all goes as planned,” Rey quips, and Ben squeezes her hand.

“That’s awesome,” Dameron says, smiling in a way that made him look ten years younger.  “There are a few things I’d like to discuss with you first thing in the morning, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” Ben responds quickly.  Dameron pats him on the shoulder.

“Great.  Rey will know where to take you.”  He looks back at Finn, nodding, and Finn hands him a datapad.  “I also wanted to discuss this with you,” he says, handing it to Rey.

She scans the pad quickly, leaning over enough for Ben to see.  She reads the stipulations, stopping to gape at Poe when she realizes what the legal documentation she holds in her hands is.  “You killed Ben?”

“No,” Poe says with a smile.  “Ben Solo is still very much alive.  People speculate that he came out of intensive Force training at the word of his mother’s untimely death.”  He stares for a moment, reliving Leia’s demise, before shaking himself out of his stupor.  “However, unfortunately, Kylo Ren died in the battle above Coruscant.  Rumor has it that he was defending the Resistance, and he died when he crashed his TIE-Silencer proto-type into the Ascendancy, causing a computer system meltdown that destroyed the entire fleet.”

“Poe,” Rey says softly, staring at the datapad, reading through Kylo Ren’s death certificate while sitting next to Ben Solo, alive and well.

“Kylo Ren died a war hero.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Ben says after he’s finished reading, pulling the datapad from Rey’s grip and handing it back to him.  “I would have stood trial.”

“But then Ben Solo would most likely have been put to death,” he says with a simple shrug, “and I’m extremely curious to see what kind of person he is.”  And with that, he exits, Finn on his heels.  Rose stays around for an extra moment, smiling at Ben.

“Maybe it’s weird to say,” she starts, taking a slow breath, “but I’m happy you’re alive.”  She glances at Rey, who’s positively beaming, and Ben can’t even find it in himself embarrassed.

“Thank you, Rose,” he responds, and she smiles.

She stands there awkwardly for another moment, then claps her hands, looking at Ilecce.  “Shall we?”

“Ah, yes, we’ve still got work to do,” Ilecce responds, standing and giving Ben a quick pat on the shoulder.  So many people thought it necessary to touch him today, it was strange.  “I’m also happy you’re alive, Ben.”  He simply nods at her, and she grins, walking away with Rose.

Leaving him alone with Rey.

“I thought you’d probably be hungry,” she says after a moment, standing up and grabbing the metal tray practically overflowing with various meats, breads, vegetables, and a couple small dishes of fruit.  She pulled over a table on wheels, positioning it over his sitting form and setting the tray on top with various utensils.

“I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself,” he says as she sets up a small makeshift dining set.

“I’m well-aware,” she responds, sitting cross-legged next to him on the small cot.  He picks up the fork, watching her as she stares at the food.

“I imagine you don’t expect me to eat all of this,” he says, and she grins, grabbing a fork from the table where she’d set his clothes and digging in.  Ben shakes his head, smirking, before taking a few bites himself.

“What have I missed?” he asks after a few minutes of pleasant quiet.  She shrugs, chewing as she thinks.

“Not much, really,” she says around a half-full mouth of food.  “Poe’s head honcho, for the time being, though he doesn’t want that to last.”

“Ilecce mentioned that,” Ben supplies, and Rey nods thoughtfully.

“You about gave Poe and Finn both a heart attack, by the way,” she says casually, tearing off a large hunk of the bread.  “You can’t just transfer billions of credits into people’s names without telling them, unless your goal is to shock them to death.”

“Maybe it was,” he shrugs, and she kicks him, knocking her knee into the table and nearly toppling a glass of water.  Ben can’t help but laugh, and Rey stares at him, her eyes round and honest.

“I missed you,” she says after a moment.  “You don’t know how much it scared me, the idea of you not being there anymore to bug me.”  Reaching out, she laces her fingers through his beneath the table, squeezing lightly.  “I thought I was going to lose you forever.”

“Unfortunately, you’re stuck with me,” he says sarcastically, and she quirks an eyebrow, unamused.  Ben takes a slow breath, shaking his head.  “For what it’s worth, I am sorry.  I never wanted you to have to worry about me,” he says, squeezing her hand back before pulling away to finish eating.  She was right; he was absolutely ravenous.  Whatever nutrients they must have stuck into his blood wasn’t enough to fend off seven days of hunger.

They finish eating, Rey allowing Ben to consume most of what was on the tray.  She pushes the table aside, empty tray and all, and makes him drink the glass of water, despite his grumbling protests about how he’s not a child.

“No, but you still had a four-inch pipe driven through your chest, and damn it, Ben, you will allow me to nurture you as I choose,” she retorted, and he stopped complaining after that.

Though the med droid wouldn’t give him clearance to leave the medical wing until morning, Ben still put on a pair of pants and the undertunic Rey brought him.  The gown was constrictive and uncomfortable, and clothing was the first step toward him feeling more like himself.

Once he was standing, though, he stretched his entire body, then made Rey walk a few laps around the beds with him, just to make sure everything was working correctly.  She seemed more excited with every step he took, a soft reminder that he was alive, that his body was whole and undamaged.  But still, walking after so long stuck in bed exhausted him, and he went back to the cot after about forty-five minutes.

Rey had explained most of the happenings – how the ex-Stormtroopers were being re-trained to join society, how most of Ben’s voluntary soldiers were now members of the Resistance, and those that chose not to join were given a nice severance from Poe’s First Order-funded accounts.  She reiterated all of the Order-controlled systems that had joined forces with the Resistance, how they’d finally gotten the support of Naboo, much too late.  She talked about how all of the systems were working to implement Ben’s plan into action, voting a representative to join the Advisors.  She told him that they were on board Lando Calrissian’s ship, which made Ben blanch – there was no way Lando had forgiven him for Han’s death.  But Rey calmed him, said Lando had come in a few times to check up on him and tell her stories about his childhood.

“How embarrassing were they?” he asked.

“Oh, terribly so,” she joked, kissing his cheek.

Once they settled back onto the cot, Rey took a slow breath, reaching out and grabbing his hands.  He felt the bond thrum to life with their contact, in that bizarrely familiar way, like an electrical current was connecting their skin.

He pulled her closer, moving so she was positioned in his lap with her head on his chest.  He needed to have her near, to ground him and remind him that she was safe.  They were no longer on opposing sides of this war.  The war was won, and it wasn’t light or darkness that prevailed, but balance.

“When were you going to tell me about the students you had your Knights collecting?” she asks after a few minutes of silence.  He moves to look at her, but she’s playing with the hem of her shirt, not making eye contact.

“When all the rest of this was sorted out,” he admits honestly.  “Training Force-sensitive students sort of came second to preparing the galaxy for an overthrow of power, truth be told.”

“You started collecting them before you planned this overthrow of power,” she says, finally looking up at him.  “Why?”

Ben blows out a long breath.  He’d known this conversation was coming, as soon as he was certain she’d be part of his life forever.  But he was hoping for more time to plan this part – the admission of truth on his darker account.  Ilecce must have told her.

“I wanted to build an army,” he admits, knowing he can’t hide the truth from her.  She’d just pluck it out of his brain.  “There are hundreds of children out there who have all this power and have no idea how to use it, Rey.  I wanted to teach them, show them what they were capable of with the power already within them.”

“You wanted to build an army of Darksiders,” she verifies, and he nods.  “That’s cruel, Ben.  You never even gave them a choice.”

“You act like the Padawans of Luke’s academy were given a choice,” he retorts, taking a deep breath to calm himself.  “That’s obviously not what I want anymore, Rey.  And their training should have barely even started.  There’s still time to teach them all to walk the line, in the Gray.”

“I know,” Rey says, settling back against him.  “I just wish you had told me sooner.”

“There was very little time,” he responds, and she nods, but says nothing more.  Instead of saying anything else, he cups her face in his hand and kisses her.

It’s gentle, at first.  To make up for all the time they spent apart, all the fear they each had at the prospect of losing the other.  He pushes his feelings across the bond, engulfing her with the love he feels for her, and she responds by deepening the kiss.  Clambering to her knees, she threads her fingers through his hair and sucks his bottom lip into her mouth, worrying it slightly between her teeth before soothing her nips with her tongue.

Ben pulls her against him until she’s straddling his hips, his hands on her waist as their mouths slide seamlessly together.  He can taste her fear, her exhaustion, and her overwhelmingly ferocious happiness that he’s alive, that they’re able to do this now.  That she can kiss him and be kissed back with just as much passion and adoration.

He moves, sliding his lips along her jaw until they find that spot beneath her ear that makes her groan.  He smirks, licking and biting it gently, and her hips buck reflexively against his.  Her fingers tangle in his hair as he sucks, pulling him closer as his mouth moves down her neck.

With a sigh, she pulls away, shaking her head.  “We shouldn’t.”  He pulls her back.

“Why?”

“Anyone can walk in.”

“Everyone’s already walked in,” he responds, kissing her again.  Her next rebut dies in her throat, drowned out by the whimper of pleasure as he slides his hands beneath her tunic to cup her breasts.  He palms each one, tugging her breast band down for better access, and she arches her back into his hands.  Her nipples pebble against his fingertips as he grazes them.

She concedes against his mouth, pressing her body against his and grinding her hips against the hardened bulge of his cock.  He gasps, tugging at her shirt insistently.

They part long enough for her to whip her shirt over her head, unwrapping the undertunic and uncinching her breast band to slide it off.  Ben tugs off his shirt as well, wondering why he’d decided to put it on in the first place.

Their mouths connect again as she reaches down, undoing the clasp of his pants at the same time he’s untying hers.  Both of them panting with desperation, pupils blown with desire, because they _need_ this, need to touch each other, to _feel_ each other.  Her fingertips trail along the hardened length of him, and he groans, shoving his pants down.

There’s static in the air between them as they slide out of their clothes, until there’s nothing but skin on skin, and the static electrifies them both as she slides her body astride his.  He reaches down between them, sliding his fingers up her slit, finding her completely drenched.

“So wet already,” he murmurs, kissing her jaw as she presses her hips into his hand.  He circles the small, sensitive bundle of nerves, listening as her breath hitches as he strokes her.  She grabs his shoulders, whining softly as he circles her entrance.

“Ben,” she gasps, and it’s the sweetest sound he’s ever heard.  His finger slowly delves in as his thumb continues ministrations on her clit until she’s moaning against his neck.  One hand still gripping his shoulder, the other trails down his chest, his abdomen, his hip, leaving a trail of fire in her wake until she’s slowly stroking his shaft.

“Eager,” he whispers, reaching down and wrapping his hand around hers, helping her find a rhythm.  She nods, kissing him roughly as he thrusts a finger into her up to the knuckle.  Her back arches with a silent moan, biting his bottom lip to stifle the sound, and he groans into her mouth.

“I can’t,” she gasps, pulling his hand away from her core.  He’s momentarily afraid he’d done something wrong, that he’d hurt her, and she feels that across the bond.  “No, no,” Rey says, kissing him as she pulls herself closer.  “I need you, Ben.”  She presses her hips flush against his.  “I need you inside of me.”  She kisses his cheek, his jaw, following the line of his scar to that spot where his neck and shoulder meet.  He tilts his head back, giving her full access to her favorite spot and moaning as she sucks a mark into him.  Making up for the one that had healed.

She lines him up with her entrance, her lips tracing along the shell of his ear before making their way back to his mouth.  As she slowly inches herself onto him, she kisses him, swallowing his groan as she works her way down his length until she’s bottomed out.  He hisses against her mouth, looking down at where their bodies are joined, where he’s engulfed in her wet heat.  It’s artwork, seeing the way she swallows him within her body.  And she, the most beautiful canvas as she keens with need.  She’s so tight, so perfect, the contours of her body aligning and blending with his.  In this moment, he firmly believes that they were made for each other.  No one else in the galaxy could fit him like this.

“Oh,” she gasps softly, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and hugging him close.  He cups the back of her head, holding it against his shoulder as he wraps the other around her waist.

For a moment, all he wants to do is hold her.

Then, she begins rocking her hips against his, just enough to cause that delicious friction.  He grips her hip, thrusting up into her in time with her gentle rocking, setting a deliberately slow pace.  She lets out a shuddering breath against his cheek, and he tangles his fingers in her hair, kissing her neck as they move together.  She slides her body up the entire length of him, dropping herself back down as she rolls her hips against his.  Ben moans her name, kissing along her collarbone, down her chest as she digs her nails into his shoulders.  She pulls his lips back to hers, cupping his face, their entwined bodies leaving no room for any barriers.  He feels all of her, feels every part of her pressed against him, feels her beautiful mind radiating passion and joy and love.

He breaks the kiss, looking up at her with absolute adoration in his eyes.  She brushes his hair back, moaning as her clit grinds against his pelvic bone, tilting back and allowing him full access to the column of her throat.  He sucks his own mark into her skin at the dip of her collar, her body pressing into his at the base of them.  He helps her, reaching between them and rubbing her clit in slow, languid strokes.  She bucks against him, biting into his shoulder to stifle a loud moan.

“Right there,” she breathes, her body trying to match the cadence of his thumb against her base.  He feels every inch of her as she slides against him, her slickness coating him entirely, her body clenching around his cock as he brings her closer to the edge of her orgasm.  “Oh stars, Ben, don’t stop.”  He starts stroking her a little faster, pacing his thrusts with his thumb. 

Gripping his shoulders, she moves against him, her pacing becoming erratic as she centers on the edge of oblivion.  “I’m so close,” she groans.  “Please, Ben, please.”

Leaning in, Ben captures her mouth with his, kissing her for a torturous moment before pulling away.  “Come for me, cyar’ika,” he says huskily, and she can’t stop herself.  She throws her head back as she comes, looking him in the eye as her moan reverberates around the room of the med ward.

Ben pulls his hands away from her clit to hold her hips as he thrusts up into her, the fluttering and clenching of her pussy driving him that much closer to his own finish.  He moans her name, stars erupting in his heart as he jumps over the edge with her, holding her in place as he shoots the thick ropes of his finish deep inside her.

Rey collapses against him, breathing heavily, her forehead against his shoulder.  He brushes her sweaty hair back and kisses her temple.  Slowly, they come back down, their heavy breathing subsiding as they touch back down to earth.  They both groan as she slides off him, reaching up to kiss him again.

Pressing her forehead to his, she gently strokes his face, brushing back the errant curls stuck to his cheeks.  “I love you,” she whispers, and Ben swears his heart stops for a moment.  He wants to deny her, tell her she can’t possibly love him, that there’s no way she should ever even consider choosing him.  But he looks into her earnest hazel eyes and sees nothing but her steely resolve, and her unwavering honesty, and Ben feels his heart swell.

“Say it again,” he says, his voice still light with disbelief.

“I love you,” she responds as he cups her face.

“Again.”

“I love you, Ben Solo,” she smiles, drinking in his expression, his eyes wide with awe, his mouth still half-agape with disbelief.  “Everything that you are, have ever been and will ever be.”  She wraps her hands around his wrists, pulling them away from her face and tangling their fingers together.  She leans in, kissing him again, because she cannot get enough of the feeling of his lips on hers.  And Ben is overcome.  Of course, he’d fall in love with her.  There was never another option.  As soon as he saw her mind on Starkiller, as soon as he saw the pieces of himself in her loneliness; as soon as he saw her in his dreams.  He was destined to love her, destined for his chest to ache with her absence and for his heart to beat blood through his veins with the sole purpose of seeing her again.

How in all the galaxy could she possibly love him back?  How did he deserve that?  She was too pure, too good, too _light_ for his darkness.  Worth more than anything in any system.  The most beautiful mosaic, a stained-glass masterpiece.

How was it that all of his jagged edges just happened to fit perfectly with hers?

He doesn’t realize she’s shaking her head until she pulls away, her eyes glistening.  “You’re not broken, Ben.”  Her lips claim his with all that love pushing toward him.

He leans them back until they’re lying in the small med cot facing each other.  He pulls the thin blanket around them, more for her sake, since she’s so prone to getting cold.  He brushes her hair back from her face and kisses her forehead.

Her.  The scavenger.  The desert girl.

Rey.

The girl he loves.

The girl who implanted herself in his heart and stubbornly refused to move until the seeds had taken root, until it spread and flowered and blossomed, filling his chest like a garden.  Every time he inhaled, he could feel it growing.  Ben figured it would continue to do so until it consumed him.

It doesn’t scare him.  He doesn’t think anything she could do would ever scare him.

Wrapping his arms around her, he pulls her close, kissing her cheek as they settle in to the bed together.

Together.

Ben decided that might be one of his favorite words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my lovelies!
> 
> We finally got to hear Rey say those sweet three words to Ben.
> 
> I did it. I killed Kylo Ren. He dead af.
> 
> A lot going on in this chapter, eh? Some hope, some flirting, a little seriousness, a bit of smut.
> 
> I'm trying to stretch this story to make it an even forty chapters (including the epilogue), but it might only be thirty-nine, at the expense of my OCD tendencies. Or so my doctor calls them. Whatever.
> 
> I mentioned awhile back that I started a new project - it was another Reylo story (because why not, right?), a modern AU. I got sixty pages into it and it absolutely kicked my ass, so I left it alone for the time being. SO, that being said. If anyone wants to, y'know, push some story ideas my way, I'd appreciate it.
> 
> An AU would be fun and challenging, but there's a lot of in-universe stuff I'd like to explore someday, too. So like, should I write a zombie AU? Something else post-apocalyptic? Or should I explore other in-universe avenues? The idea of Poe becoming an extremist-Resistance antagonist always intrigued me (based on that one line from TLJ). Or, perhaps, Rey joining Ben as Empress, or a combination of the two of those. Or maybe go a little bit more in-depth in the reverse-Anidala theory. Or, idk, anything else lol.
> 
> Someone asked why Anakin wasn't able to feel Padme after death, but my running theory with that is, because she wasn't Force-sensitive, her spirit post-mortem was sort of absorbed into the Cosmic Force, making her a part of everything. The only people able to manifest after death are Qui-Gon (voice only), Yoda, Obi-Wan, Anakin, and, presumably, Luke. Each some of the strongest Force-sensitive individuals. But the Force itself is never-ending, and I like to think the spirits of Padme, Leia, and everyone else becomes part of it, without the singularity of souls, until their energy is divided and given to another person. The Star Wars universe's version of reincarnation, if you will.
> 
> ANYWAY. You guys are amazing and I love you so, so much. Many of you have been with me since day one of this story, and its ending is approaching much more rapidly than I anticipated. Everything is bittersweet about that, of course, as it tends to be.
> 
> I love you all.
> 
> Comments and kudos are very much appreciated and keep me alive! I'll see you on Friday!


	38. in which our space nerd gets his groove back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, Just You and I by Tom Walker pairs well with this chapter.

Rey awakens the next morning when the med droid comes wheeling in to release Ben.  She practically falls out of the bed, her face completely red with embarrassment, but Ben only laughs.

“It’s a droid, Rey,” he says as it examines him and she throws her clothes on.  “It’s not sentient.”

“New bruises formed since previous night,” the droid drones.  “No explanation, no connection to previous life-threatening injuries.  You are to proceed with caution with daily activities, do not lift more than thirty-five pounds to avoid unnecessary stress on spinal column that was damaged during crash.”  With that, the droid beeps its approval for his dismissal and leaves.

“That was horrible,” Rey groans as Ben soothingly rubs her shoulders.  “What if it had been a person?”

Ben retrieves his pants from the floor, tugging them on before moving to stand in front of her.  “Are you that ashamed of me?” he asks, and she looks up at his face, not betraying any emotion save for the slight twitch of his lips.

She smacks his chest, and he breaks the façade, a grin spreading across his cheeks.  “You know that’s not the issue.”

“I know,” he says with a shrug, grabbing his shirt and pulling it on, tucking it into the waistband of the trousers before grabbing the tunic he hadn’t bothered with the night before.  “However, now that they know we spent eight days alone together, I do have to wonder what they think happened.”

Rey groans again, burying her face in the pillow.  “Maybe they just think we played a couple hundred rounds of sabacc.”

“What else could possibly have kept you away from your beloved Resistance, if not a card game?”  But he’s laughing, leaning down and brushing her hair away from her face.  “Now, I believe we have a meeting to attend with Dameron, and you might want to brush your hair before you get even more rumors circulating.”

“Kriff,” she says, standing up quickly and running her fingers through her hair.  It really was a mess.  “I forgot Poe wanted to meet with you.”

“Distracted?” he asks innocently as he hands her a comb, and she has to stop herself from throwing it right back at him.  He begins lacing up the boots Rey brought for him, then stands, looking down at the outfit.

It wasn’t black, the tunic a light gray over dark gray pants.  It reminded him, quite suddenly, of the outfit he was wearing when he’d stared at his reflection in the cave beneath Ahch-To.

Rey yanks her boots on, then meets him at the foot of the bed, reaching out to grasp his hand.  “Ready?” she asks, with a smile on her face.

“As I’ll ever be,” he answers, leaning down to kiss her quickly.

... 

The meeting with Poe lasted hours.  Rey sat dutifully beside Ben, with Finn and Rose across from them, the rest of the high command officers scattered about.  Connix was sitting behind Poe, her hands typing on a datapad as they talked, taking notes of the encounter.

The conclusion they came to was that the military would become strictly voluntary, with Ben’s original salary plan in place.  Finn would take all previous Stormtroopers, those that turned and those who were imprisoned, and put them through the reform school.  It was a three-year-long program Finn, Poe and a few other officers came up with that would be mandatory, in an attempt to break the conditioning and brainwashing instilled by Brendol and Armitage Hux.  As soon as they graduated, they’d have the option of either working in the system of their choosing or returning to the frontlines, but they’d all be monitored for the first ten years, to make sure no uprisings happen post-Order.

The chain of command was the hardest negotiation.  Poe was acting essentially as Supreme Leader, and he was convinced that the democracy of the Republic was the only way to bring peace.  But Ben argued that the Old and New Republics reigned for many years without bringing peace to every system, which is how the dark prevailed.

“So, you’re saying we shirk democracy altogether?” Poe had practically screamed.

“Do not misinterpret my directives,” Ben said, managing to keep his cool, though his hand clutched Rey’s harshly beneath the huge round conference table.  “There has to be some amount of accountability, some mediation within each system.  You’ve already implemented the elections within systems, which is a quintessential part of the plan.  But there must be a number of overseers to work with certain delegations beyond the elected officials, those who focus solely on various aspects of government.  A group of people – _not_ military officers – to oversee the trade negotiations.  Another group to implement the abolition of slavery in every system.”  Rey was awed by Ben’s extensive knowledge.  This was a plan he truly cared for, something he must have worked tirelessly on in their time apart.  The uploaded file from BB-9E’s message to Leia was once more projected on the holo, Ben outlining the plan again.

“So, we leave everything up to some type of constitutional patriarchy?” Finn asked somewhere in the middle.  “We bring in another Emperor or Empress?”

“Not necessarily,” Ben shrugs.  “There would be some amount of oversight if we left galaxy in the hands of a single or pair.  However, with a cabinet established to stand beneath the head of state, there would be little in the way of mistakes.  Few policies could fall through the cracks.”

“A pyramid,” Rey says slowly, and Ben nods.

“An inverted pyramid,” he responds.  “Not a Senate, they never get anything done.  But a system speaker, a cabinet, a number of politic-specific departments, a Head of State, and an Overseer.”  He brings up a depiction of his vision on the holo.

“Who takes the seat of the Overseer?” Poe asked.

“Finn, you mentioned a constitutional patriarchy,” Rey says, leaning forward.  “One of the most successful governments we’ve dealt with thus far was an elected monarchy.”

“Brennisca?” Rose asks, a moment of confusion on her face before she dawns with realization.  “Of course.”

“The Naboo government has been a fine model since long before the Empire,” Ben agrees, looking at Rey.  “Perhaps it’s time we learn their secrets.”

Brennisca was aboard the Alsakan ship the following day, a legislature was drawn up, a constitution written, and she agreed to hold elections for the next coming of Queen of Naboo while she took over for Poe.  Rey thought Poe might fall to her feet and kiss them for taking the literal weight of the galaxy off his shoulders.  The whole thing was much more seamless than Rey had anticipated, and she confronted Brennisca about it.

“I’ve long lived with the integrity that my people come first,” Brennisca says.  “However, it was you, Rey, who helped me realize that the fate of the galaxy comes even before my people.”  She’d hugged the Queen, then, even though she assumed it was improper.  After a startled moment, Brennisca hugged her back.

“Plus,” she whispered in Rey’s ear, “you proved yourself a mighty Force user.  You found balance in the Force.  It’s an honor to help find it for the rest of the galaxy.”

Since Ben had been comatose for the majority of the time they spent aboard the Alsakan ship, most of the rooms were taken and he’d been staying in Rey’s quarters, which had been horrifyingly awkward to explain when they’d exited together at one point.  But their relationship was old news by now, and they wouldn’t be staying for too much longer anyway.

She’d actually sort of stumbled into that one.  Walking back into their room after a day helping Rose and Finn get things ready for Finn’s reform school, she’d walked in to find Ben and Ilecce talking quietly.  He looked up at her, the barest amount of confusion on his face.

“I figured that Ilecce had told you about the Force-sensitive students,” Ben said as Ilecce slipped away quietly.  “But she says she didn’t.”

“Well you never actually asked me how I found out,” Rey responded as she sat on their small bed, unlacing her boots.  He stared down at her until she conceded, pulling him so he was practically lying on top of her, pressing their foreheads together and showing him everything.

When she finally opened her eyes, his face was open with a hundred emotions, and Ben had tears in his eyes.  A few slipped down his cheeks, and Rey wiped them away with her thumbs, not quite understanding his reaction but allowing him to feel it.

He said nothing more on the situation, so she decided it was a conversation for another time.

It was a week after Ben woke up that they finally held the memorial service for Leia.  Instead of dark, solemn colors, Poe and Rey both insisted that everyone wear their most festive outfit – the thing in their closets they know Leia would have chosen for them, had she been alive.  The few command officers that had been in the tent had their service days after the attack above Coruscant, but Rey had insisted they wait for Ben to wake up, to take part in his mother’s burial.

Chewbacca and Lando, as her oldest friends, stood beside Ben at the front of the pyre.  Nothing survived the blast, so they pulled together a few of Leia’s items from the Falcon, some stuff she’d left on Barkhesh that Connix and Rose went and retrieved, and Ben journeyed to Chandrila, to the house he grew up in, and brought back her journal.

He told Rey it was something he had to do it alone, and after a short-lived argument, she agreed.  The trip only took a day, but Ben came back much more solemn than when he’d left.  They burned her belongings, then pushed them into the vacuum of space, right into the center of the asteroid belt that had once been Alderaan.

Poe and Lando both said their peace, but Ben didn’t say a word the entire service.  Rey stood beside him, despite her protests to her friends that she didn’t deserve to be at the front, that she hadn’t known Leia well enough.

“I don’t think Ben wants you up there for Leia,” Finn had pointed out, and Rey couldn’t argue beyond that.

The ceremony was beautiful, and Rey cried quietly beside Ben after Poe spoke about how great of a leader Leia had been, how he’d had a void his mother left with her untimely passing that Leia had filled.  How she’d always pushed him to be a better version of himself, and without her influence he might not be who he was.

Regret rolled off Ben in waves, and Rey could do nothing to quell it.

After the service, Finn came up and gave Ben a hard pat on the shoulder, and Ben gave an appreciative nod.

That was another thing.  After the meeting with Poe about the direction the government should take, Finn and Ben had developed some type of quiet camaraderie.  Not that Rey was complaining, but she had asked Finn about it at one point.  The answer he’d given wasn’t entirely convincing, and Rey had to press for details until he sighed.

“He saved my life,” Finn shrugged.  “It’s the least I could do to give this version of him a chance.”  He’d patted her shoulder and walked away, and Rey was afraid their friendship wouldn’t go back to the way things had been, but Rose had disagreed.

“A lot is changing,” she’d reassured Rey.  “He knows that Ben is about to whisk you away to some corner of the galaxy, while he’s working on building his reform school.  You guys are going to be far apart, and he’s scared of that.”

“He’s still my best friend,” Rey had said softly, and Rose shrugged.

“Maybe I’m not the one you should be saying that to.”

Regretfully, there just hadn’t been enough time.  It was a mere two days later that Finn was taking Chewie and the Falcon to his reform school – having taken over Hux’s Stormtrooper school on Arkanis to save credits.  The following day, Rey, Ben and Ilecce were debarking for Mustafar, where Ilecce had apparently taken the Force-sensitive children Ben had tasked her with finding.

“They’re all orphans,” Ilecce explained while Ben loaded up his TIE-Silencer onto the ship – Lando had given them one of his larger transports, along with a couple of X-Wings.  “One of the stipulations Ben had made sure to instill in us while looking for these kids.  Orphaned, neglected, chastised for their gifts, or not aware that they had any gifts in the first place.”  Ilecce smiled.  “I think that was partially you, influencing him long before you re-entered his life.”

Ben boarded, and Rey smiled cheekily from the pilot’s seat.

“You don’t even know where we’re going,” Ben argued, and Rey just shrugged.  With a sigh, Ben resigned himself to the copilot’s seat, typed in the coordinates, and they lifted off together.

Mustafar was a terrifying planet.  The Darkness flowed as freely as the lava, and Vader’s castle was the most imposing thing Rey thought she’d ever seen.  She’d never felt so much sadness warping around a single space – it was as though this place was the very location that produced the galaxy’s misery.  It was stifling, catching in her throat and bringing tears to her eyes.  She didn’t get the chance to look much, however – Ben was marching through the doors of Vader’s temple with some amount of fury Rey didn’t recognize.

Entering, however, she found it much less consuming. 

Ilecce had explained that the children were being well taken care of by a few protocol droids, fed and taught basic schooling – nothing of the Force.  But she got daily updates on her comm, and all of the children seemed to be in excellent health, no longer malnourished, or so the med droids claimed.

She’d set up a bed chamber for the twelve of them, as well as a meditation room – the one thing she’d managed to teach them all, apparently – and a school room for their learning.  They all crowded her as soon as she walked into the classroom, interrupting the protocol droid.

“Alright, go pack your things,” she said as soon as they all settled down.  “These are my friends, Rey and Ben.  They’re going to help me teach you about the Force, but we’re not staying on Mustafar.”

“Good!” one of the smaller twi’lek girls shouted.  “It’s hot all the time here!”

“Where are we going?” a young cerean boy asked.

“Ben has had a school built for you,” Ilecce explained, and Rey looked at Ben.  This was coming as a surprise to her, as well.

“I had it commissioned before we started talking again,” he said with a shrug.  “It was finished a week ago.”

“More secrets,” Rey said with a groan, and Ben bumped her shoulder as the children filed out and Ilecce gave orders to the protocol droids to take their learnings and board the ship idling outside.

“More surprises,” he clarified, and Rey couldn’t help but smile.  She reached up on her toes to kiss his cheek, but he turned his head at the last moment, so she landed on his lips instead.  She smiled against his mouth, and the bond sighed with content, almost an afterthought with how well-acquainted they’d both become with it.

“I love you, cyar’ika,” he said softly, and she grinned.

“I know,” she said easily.  “As I love you.”

Instead of watching the children get ready, Ben took Rey up to the top of the tower, leading her through a corridor and into a small room to one side, nearly hidden within a wall.  There was a single chair and a holopad, and Ben moved to power it on.

“What’s this?” Rey asked as the pad warmed up, casting the otherwise dark room in a white light.

“Vader’s personal archive room,” Ben said quietly.  A prompt for a password popped up, and Ben took a deep breath, then entered the information Anakin had given Rey, when he’d visited.

It took a moment to load, with the dated tech, until more than a hundred files were jumping across the room.  Rey stared, awed, as Ben thumbed through them – they were organized numerically – and picked the first at random.

It was the death certificate of Shmi Skywalker.

Confusion knitting his eyebrows together, Ben moved on, clicking another file at random and finding an article from the holonet about the election of Queen Amidala of Naboo.  The next file was some type of training video from the Jedi Academy, of Anakin Skywalker teaching a small class of younglings lightsaber forms, the next was documentation of Padme’s election into the Senate.  There were reports about missions conducted by Ahsoka Tano, there were more articles that mentioned Padme’s political gains as a Senator, and files upon files of picture clips, all of them from news articles, all of them pictures of Padme.

Rey took it all in, keeping an eye on Ben as he thumbed through an inordinate amount of information.  After seeming to get his fill, he finally stopped searching, staring at the base of the holopad, an unreadable emotion on his face.  She allowed him to process this, allowed him to feel his emotions as they came.

“He never wanted to forget,” Ben finally said, still unable to look at Rey.  “He never gave up his past – beneath that suit and that name was always Anakin Skywalker.”

Time stretched the silence between them, Rey knowing Ben needed to understand.  Finally, he shut down the holo-projector, took Rey’s hand, and they exited the room together.

Ben and Rey introduced themselves to the children together once they were prepared for their voyage, stating that it was Ben’s idea to collect them and help them figure out this mysterious power they had.  They showed off their respective lightsabers, allowing the kids to marvel.  When they asked if they would build their own, Ben had shrugged.

“If that’s what you choose,” he said simply.  “Or, if you want to build something like Ilecce’s cleaver, we can teach you with that.  Or, if you just want to use a blaster, we can teach you with that.  It’s all up to you.”  The kids had beamed, having choices opened up to them that they’d never had before.

Rey had watched with a sort of muted reverence as he interacted with these children, then had taken him into the captain’s quarters of the ship and had her way with him.

When they were finished, sweaty and naked, a tangle of limbs and hair, with his face pressed into her neck and his hands around her waist, he talked about his childhood on Chandrila.  How he’d gone through a dozen nannies and tutors every year, how he acted out with more and more rage as a misunderstood child with too much power and voices in his head he couldn’t tell anyone about.  How his parents feared his abilities, and how he knew his dad wished he were normal.

“I didn’t have friends,” he said.  “I chased away all of the teachers my mother hired with my strength.  They dealt with it for years before Leia sent me away.  I was surprised she put up with me for as long as she did, but I knew she felt like she’d failed as a parent.”

“And how did you feel?”  Ben shuffled uncomfortably against her back, pressing a kiss into her neck.  She knew he was having a hard time talking about this at all, and she was afraid her question was too intrusive, but he took a deep breath and answered.

“Forgotten.  Alone, really.  I couldn’t understand how it was so easy for them to just cast me away like that.”  She felt him shrug.  “I guess I wasn’t seeing things terribly clearly.  I know now that sending me to Luke was probably the hardest thing she’d ever done.”

“She’d wanted what was best for you,” Rey responded softly, and Ben sighed.

“The only problem with that was that she’d never asked what I thought was best.”  He took a few slow breaths, trying to calm his anger, and Rey rubbed soothing circles on his forearms.  “She spent so long looking for all these different solutions to help me fit in.  She and Han both.  But all I ever really needed was my parents.”

Rey turned around to face him and pressed her lips to his, brushing his hair out of his face.  He took another slow, steadying breath.

“Going back to Chandrila to get my mother’s journal reminded me of all that.  It dredged up a lot of memories I’d buried for my own sake.”  She pulled herself closer to him, not really knowing how else to comfort him.  He rested his head on her chest, listening to her heart beat, which seemed to calm him.  “But it also reminded me of some of the best memories that I’d long since forgotten, happy memories of my mother and father acting like they actually loved each other.  Mother making breakfast in the morning, surprising me because she knew Father would be home that day and kept it a secret.  Memories swimming with Chewbacca in the lake, or Luke coming to visit when he wasn’t hunting artifacts in the galaxy, and the four of us spending the day together.”

“It’s easy to forget the good when there’s so much bad,” Rey agrees, combing her fingers through his hair.  “But it’s also beneficial to remember that there was good.  It keeps you grounded.”

“Balance,” Ben says softly, and Rey nods.

“Balance,” she agrees.  Slowly, Ben rises to his elbows staring into her eyes like he’s getting lost in them.  The deep earthy pools of his own are swimming with a hundred emotions, but the main one she recognizes quite well.

Love.  Directed at her.  For her.  All hers.

She’s never been so proud to own something.  But having Ben’s heart, his love, his adoration; she’d wear it if she could.

“I just want to remember the good from now on,” he says softly, and Rey nods her agreement.

“Then let’s just remember the good,” she says easily, caressing his face.  “Though if any of the children ask where you got this scar, I will not lie to them.”  Ben can’t help but laugh.

“We’ll demonstrate it for them, if you’d like,” he says, resting his forehead against hers as they fall into a comfortable quiet.  Leaning down, he slots his lips against hers, fitting together in that perfect way they seem to.  It’s lasting, making her toes curl as her arms wrap around his shoulders of their own accord.  Wanting to be as close to him as she can.

“I can make that happen,” Ben says softly, responding to her thought, and for a moment heat pools in her belly and she wonders if he’s referring to interlocking themselves once more, but he shakes his head with a smug smile on his face.  “Not that.”

“Then what?” she asks, more disappointed than she’d care to admit.

His amber gaze melts her down to her core, causing a shiver up the entire length of her spine, and Ben stares at her like he can see her soul, and like it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever laid eyes on.  Those opalescent pieces of the picture he’d painted of her in his mind, the one that lined up perfectly with the stained-glass portrait she’d created of him.  Two puzzles, finally complete, finally at home within one another.  Her bones become rubber beneath his unyielding eyes, and something within her tells her that this is a monumental moment.  That she needs to memorize the contours of his face right now, the way his lips are parted, the way his eyes are shining with wonder and reverence and resolve.

Finally, after minutes or hours or days, she’s not exactly sure, he pulls in a hesitant breath.

“I love you,” he says, his voice a low rumble as she traces his cheekbone with her thumb.

“I love you,” she responds simply, and he smiles, leaning his face against her hand and kissing her palm.

“Marry me, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my lovelies!
> 
> This chapter should have been entitled, "in which makeshiftcandy literally knows nothing about government" but that would be too direct of a fourth-wall break so.  
> I think everything I ever learned about government was when I was a freshman in high school, and that was like 10 years ago, so.
> 
> OH so someone a few chapters asked why Ben hadn't given Rey any of the First Order credits when he gave them to Finn, Poe and Ilecce. There's a few reasons for that, actually, and I'm sorry for not answering the following chapter. So basically, Ben didn't give Rey any credits because 1) he knew she'd have no idea what to do with them, and new she'd subsequently either get angry with him or give them away, 2) he hadn't anticipated nor wanted to admit almost dying was a possibility, so he didn't think she'd need them (kind of wishful thinking but we all know Ben Solo is a hopeless romantic), and 3) in the even that something DID go wrong and his life was taken, he hoped his Knights would tell her about his work on the school and she'd join them anyway. Even before all that stuff happened with the KOR, Ben trusted Ilecce above his other Knights, which is why the credits were transferred into her name over Jayson's or Alotha's and entrusted her with the retrieval of Force-sensitive students.
> 
> ANYWAY.
> 
> You guys are amazing, thank you so much for letting me take you on this ride. Next chapter is the epilogue, in which I (try) and tie up all those loose ends.
> 
> It'll be out on Tuesday.
> 
> And then, probably in a few weeks, I'm going to begin posting a new story. I'm still not 100% sure what the story will be, so stay tuned haha.
> 
> I love you all so much. Comments and kudos are very much appreciated (if you guys could get me above 1,000 kudos I will actually cry).
> 
> See you on Tuesday!


	39. epilogue: two space nerds find their way home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsxSE1q762qeV6AY_5moy9ZwaWl0O0gnO - this is the playlist for the song recommendations I made while writing this story.

Five Years Later

 

 

Ben awoke to find their bed empty, despite the graying morning telling him the sun had barely risen.  Rey had been getting up earlier and earlier lately, insisting that meditating as the sun rose was the purest form of relaxation she could achieve, and Ben had no reason to argue with her.

Not that he would dream of arguing with her.  She was scary these days.

Following the reformed Nation of Judicious Legislature – Rey complained when they rolled out the new name that it was too much of a mouthful; she called it the Reformed Order, to save herself time, though they seldom discussed politics –the stress of the galaxy no longer weighing on Ben’s shoulders, he’d also taken to meditating in the morning, though they used to rise together.  With her insistence that she not wake him, she’d started sleeping on the outside of their bed, which was uncomfortable at first.  He liked having her close to the wall, in the event that he needed to protect her, for whatever reason.  As though she couldn’t protect herself.  But if she ever heard him say that, he knew he’d get an earful, so he kept these thoughts to himself.

Ben was quite proud of himself, having built a sanctuary for the Force-sensitives on Tython, an ancient Jedi planet.  It was strong with the Force – with balance, which was what they had been working to instill in the children.

The Gray, they called themselves simply.  Neither Dark nor Light – they taught both, teaching the children to harness the energy that flowed through them naturally.  Thus far, the past five years had been incredible, their classes growing with every passing standard year.  They’d evolved beyond just orphans, parents willingly bringing their children to Tython to learn control and balance.

Rey, Ben and Ilecce explained time and again that they were not the Jedi.  That once the children were trained, they were free to use the Force as they saw fit.  Though they’d yet to have a graduating class, many of the older students were convinced that they’d stay planetside, helping keep order within the Academy and train the next generation.

Ilecce honed the skills of the natural healers, teaching the beginning classes as well, while Ben and Rey focused on the later learnings, as well as offensive and defensive combat.  It was peaceful.

Rolling over, Ben grabbed his undertunic off the floor and yanked his boots on, leaving the small cottage he and Rey shared.  They’d built it together after moving to Tython, neither of them feeling completely comfortable staying within the school he’d commissioned.

After they’d gotten married, it was only natural to have their own space.

Which actually ended up working out favorably – Ben never anticipated having as many students as they currently did, with their numbers in the mid-forties.  Every student was unique, and it was incredible to watch Rey interact with each of them, incredible to get to know them on a personal level.  The small group that had started their school was five times bigger now, but they all felt like a family.

It was something neither Ben nor Rey had ever really had, so being submerged in something so large of their own volition was enough to help unwind years of stress and loneliness from them both.

It helped, then, to have what would have been Ben’s quarters open for when Ilecce invited Rose to move in with her.

That was unprecedented – neither of them ever acted as though something beyond friendship was happening, but Ilecce announced their engagement at the same time she announced her intent to move Rose into the school, and Rey had burst into tears of happiness.

Finn and Poe had thrown an extravagant wedding for the two, with more flowers than they knew what to do with, on Ilecce’s home planet of Mirial.  It was a cold, dry place, but somehow, their combined efforts made the service breathtaking.  And having all of the students there, as well as Queen Regent Brennisca and much of the galactic court, ooh-ing and ahh-ing in the right moments made the entire trip worthwhile.  Rose had made Rey try on at least twenty different dresses she’d apparently kept, making sure to find the right one to match Ben’s formal tunic, as they were both in the wedding party.  Rey had made Ben dance with her at the reception, and he couldn’t help but laugh every time she stepped on his toes.

She’d been just as graceful at their own ceremony, though that was a private affair.  She’d agreed to his proposal with tears in her eyes, and Ilecce had married them as soon as they touched planetside on Tython, with the new students bearing witness.

It took a few months, and a lot of convincing to Chewie, but Ben had managed to get an old internal panel from the Falcon.  He’d smelted the metal, fashioning two simple metal bracelets that she wore on her left wrist and he wore on his right – he’d made them unique, serving to cater to the heart of the owner, but they matched, as well.  A symbol of their nuptials, though Rey had insisted it wasn’t necessary.  But she never took it off, so he figured he’d done something right.  When he told her where the metal came from, her eyes had widened with a newfound sense of awe, turning the simple design over in her hands.

“It was what brought us together, time and again,” Ben said softly as he clasped it onto her wrist, right before Rey jumped on him and kissed him senseless.

He’d engraved hers with a Mandalorian sentence, “te cyar’ika jorbe be ner oyay.”  Which, roughly translated, was “The beloved reason of my life.”  Initially, he thought it too cheesy, but when he’d translated it for her she’d cried.  The next day, he awoke alone, wandering around campus until he found her in the work garage of the school with his bracelet.  She’d engraved her own saying – “Tu aras tave nulis iv nuyak natura,” which she translated for him as “You are the love of my life”, though she wasn’t sure the language.  It was something she’d picked up over the years on Jakku.  It made his heart swell.

The morning air of Tython was a subdued cool, with summer fading slowly and fall creeping upon them.  He knew where Rey was, probably sitting far too close to the ledge that made up their island for comfort, though she would yell at him every time he mentioned it.  There was a large rock, just big enough for the two of them to perch upon, that she rather enjoyed.  He understood why; on clear mornings like this, the sunrise was beautiful.

Though she was incredibly busy with helping him and Ilecce train the Force-sensitives, the Gray, Rey was never one to sit for too long.  Lando had given them two X-Wings and Ben had taken his TIE-Silencer when they’d left what had been the Resistance.  Since then, Rey had gone to work collecting and rebuilding four additional ships.  Ben had to add a hangar, just for her to play workshop.  But, as it turned out, a number of students were interested in learning basic mechanical maintenance, and Rey had grinned smugly at him when they’d all signed up for her class.  However, with Rose having little to do after moving in, being the only non-Force-user in their little territory, Rey had allowed her to take over the class, and chose solely to go on the missions to retrieve the ships and parts.

Of course, she brought back her own side projects, as well.

After the battle above Coruscant, Rey had retrieved her things from the freighter Ben had gotten for her on Akiva.  They’d poured over the Jedi texts, both the ones she’d taken from Ahch-To and the ones from Obi-Wan Kenobi’s hut.  There was little of use for them in there, much of it outdated, and they built their principles around the creed Anakin Skywalker had told Rey, when Ben was in the bacta tank.

_There is no Dark Side, nor a Light Side.  There is only the Force.  I will do what I must to keep the balance.  There is no good without evil, but evil must not be allowed to flourish.  There is passion, yet peace.  There is serenity, yet emotion.  There is chaos, yet order._

Rose painted it beautifully on a metal board, helping Ilecce hang it outside of the training area.  It was a creed they made sure their students committed to memory; a reminder of what their purpose was.  To keep the balance.

Ben gave extra attention to the dark-leaning students, while Rey was careful with the light-leaners; they’d sort of stumbled upon that pattern by accident.  Neither group knew what they were, only that they were allowed extra training with their mentors, which none of them seemed to mind.  Ben and Rey had each become some sort of celebrities around the rest of the galaxy, the two people who worked to bring balance to the Force.

They never confirmed or denied such praise, but Rey’s eyes always caught his, a private joke dancing within that beautiful green, and Ben always had to stifle a laugh.

Four years after the implementation of the new government, Brennisca chose to step down as regent queen and return to Naboo, allowing the House of Alliance to elect a new leader.  They’d chosen a diplomat, raised by a hero of the Rebellion back in the days of the Empire, named Jacen Syndulla.  He was half-twi’lek, and Ben had met him on a couple occasions and decided he was a fit leader.  Though neither he nor Rey was part of the government, Poe as Admiral and Finn as Sergeant meant they had a bit of influence over any final decisions made.  If Rey or Ben got a bad vibe from any candidates, they were immediately cast out.

It had only been a year, but Jacen was proving himself a worthy King Regent.

Trudging up the hill toward Rey’s lookout, Ben could just make out the shape of her small silhouette in the gray morning.  Her clothes blended in with the backdrop, both of them electing to wear various shades of gray over other colors most days.  Rey had insisted, stating that they were representing something with their clothing choices.

The kids got to wear whatever they liked, so long as it was easy to train in, but it usually only took a few weeks for them to start requesting their own gray robes.

Finn had come by a week prior, staying a few nights in the school and discussing things very seriously with Rey.  Their relationship had remained quite the same, after the first few awkward weeks following Coruscant.  Finn finally told Rey that he’d been jealous, that her relationship with Ben was something he didn’t know how to handle because he’d always been convinced it’d be he who won her over.  Of course, once Poe asked him out on a date, all of that was forgotten, and Rey nearly punched him, saying she was no one’s prize to be won.  Then she’d softened, her eyes smiling when she said that she was truly happy, and it had seemed like what Poe and Finn had together was beautiful and true.

Ben imagined that was another wedding she’d drag him to, sometime relatively soon.

"It’s only right,” she’d argued as they got ready for Rose and Ilecce’s wedding.  “We didn’t invite them to ours; what kind of friends would we be to refuse to show up to theirs, as well?”

“Competent ones?”  She threw a shoe at him, and he couldn’t help but laugh.

His grandfather had also come to visit him, though that was months after the school was built and the classes were in full swing.  Rey was fast asleep, exhausted from a day spent training the students, when Ben had pattered into the kitchen for a glass of water, only to be cast in that telling ethereal blue light.

Anakin Skywalker stood proudly amidst their small cottage, taking it with a tasteful expression, and Ben had nearly fallen.

They stared at each other for a long moment, a thousand questions running through Ben’s mind, a thousand emotions gushing through his heart.  What could he say?  He understood, after what Rey showed him, why he’d not come to him sooner.  However, he was still confused over whether or not he should be angry, that his grandfather might appear to his wife twice before choosing to appear before him.  The guidance he so desperately needed as a child was something he’d been forced to find within himself, and he finally settled on saying as much.

“Exactly,” Anakin had responded, a light smile across his lips.  “Ben, I am truly proud of the man you have become.  Your mother and father would be, as well.”  Ben was speechless, and Anakin winked slyly before disappearing.

The tears flowed traitorously down his cheeks, and Ben wanted so badly to be disgusted with how soft he’d become.  But he just couldn’t.  Rey’s influence on him was positive, he knew that, but sometimes it was so hard to let go of that darkness that had been instilled within him.

He’d told Rey about the encounter, and she’d wrapped him up in her arms, kissed both of his cheeks, and told Ben that Anakin was absolutely right.  That if his mother could see him now, she’d have every praise in the world, and his father would be incredibly awkward about it.  Which only served to make Ben laugh.  He figured that had been Rey’s goal all along and had pulled her in for the most passionate kiss he could muster out of her in the middle of the night.

And, that night, as Ben was falling asleep, he swore he felt the gentle caress of his mother’s touch on his forehead, as if reiterating what both Anakin and Rey had said.

The rest of the school should still be fast asleep, Rey being the only person crazy enough to rise before the sun.  It was an off day, meaning Ben would be making Rey copious amounts of tea, rubbing her feet, and running her a bath to relax in.  The later stages of her pregnancy were taking a toll on her, but she was determined to finish out the next four weeks before they released the kids to go back to their homeworlds for a two-week vacation.  Many of the kids were orphaned, so they usually combined all their credits and spent those two weeks exploring a new world.

Not that Ben would complain.  He loved taking care of Rey, loved watching her belly swell with their children – they’d found out pretty early on that it was two, and Rey was certain they would be having a boy and a girl.  In her hormonal stages, she’d hated him for doing this to her, so the fact that she was actually allowing him to touch her now was a positive step.

Ilecce had chastised him when he’d complained, saying that her body was going through a ton of vigorous changes, and he can’t be upset with her when her emotions were so volatile that she seldom knew what she’d feel from one moment to the next.

Still, as she grew bigger, making training and bending and working that much harder with every passing day, she swore up and down she would never go through this again.

Ben was fine with that.  Two were enough.

They’d yet to name them, though Rey was set on naming the girl after his grandmother.  They’d toyed with the idea of naming the boy Anakin, as well, but it felt strange, knowing that his grandmother and grandfather had married, and to have his children bear those same names.  Padme was on the table, but it wasn’t set in stone, if they could come up with something better.

Part of him relished the idea of naming their children after his family, but another part of him wanted the twins to have their own legacies, without the Skywalker past thrust upon them.

Rey was sitting on the boulder she’d taken to in recent months, facing the sun as it barely peeked above the horizon, just as Ben expected her to be.  Her eyes were open, drinking in the picturesque view.  Ben hopped up beside her silently, crossing his legs and allowing her to lean her weight into him.  He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, their bodies aligned perfectly.  Pressing a kiss into her hair, they watched the sun rise together.  It chased away the constellations above, the stars winking out one by one until the sky was covered in pink and gold hues.  The absence of stars made the sun that much more worthwhile to see, but Ben knew they’d be right back here tonight, watching the stars as they appeared when the sun set behind them.

Those constellations blinking into view, Rey always pointing out the ones she’d mapped, comparing them with old star charts from the library in town.

They would go to bed, and he’d count the constellations of freckles across her face as she rested against him, memorizing every one until long after she’d fallen asleep.

His personal star, radiating the beauty of a thousand galaxies.

The beacon that had brought him back to her.

The lighthouse that led him home.

 

               Rey Solo, his wife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, kids. What a wild ride.
> 
> I can't believe I wrote an entire book about these space nerds. Like an actual, full book.
> 
> Like. I'll always have to know in the back of my mind that the first book I ever wrote was fucking Reylo fanfiction.
> 
> But it'll probably also be the second book I write, so whatever.
> 
> Also, can you believe that Stormpilot action I threw in at the very end? And, of course, Rose and Ileece. Because badass women should always find each other. And I'm pretty sure everyone in space is gay until proven otherwise.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed the ride! I know it was a bit of a roller coaster, but in all the best ways, right?
> 
> I'm actually really going to miss writing on this and hearing from you guys! But I've got a couple more things in the works, so I hope I hear from you all again when I start posting my next project.
> 
> Keep your eyes out for my screen name, yeah?
> 
> Also I can't believe you guys took me above a thousand kudos. You just wanted to make me cry, didn't you? Because I absolutely did. Like a little bitch.
> 
> I'm going to miss you guys. And I absolutely love each and every person who commented, asked questions, gave me feedback and left kudos. This is such a bittersweet ending, it truly is, but makeshiftcandy will return. I'm like Batman, I come in your darkest hour.
> 
> So, I guess I'll see you all next time, yeah?
> 
> <3 <3 <3

**Author's Note:**

> So I have quite a bit of this written already (for my own pleasure), and I hadn't originally had the intention of posting anything. But the not-so-gentle persuasion of my best friend urged me to take a chance.
> 
> I love these characters. I hope you love how I write them.


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